2 Mariengroschen - George Frederick Henry

Waldeck-Pyrmont's coinage of the early 1820s reflects the principality's awkward position in post-Napoleonic Germany — too small to assert monetary independence, too proud to abandon its own issues entirely. George Frederick Henry ruled one of the smallest sovereign states in the German Confederation, with a population that never exceeded 60,000 during his reign. The Mariengroschen denomination itself was a holdover from the old North German accounting system, increasingly obsolete as the states around Waldeck moved toward standardized thaler-based coinage.

The .375 fine billon composition was dictated more by economic necessity than convention.