2 Pfennig - Francis Christopher of Hutten

The Bishopric of Speyer was one of the smaller ecclesiastical principalities of the Holy Roman Empire, its territory long contested between the bishop-princes and the city of Speyer itself, which had achieved imperial free city status and largely excluded episcopal authority from within its walls. Franz Christoph von Hutten zum Stolzenberg, who held the see from 1743 until his death in 1770, issued this copper piece as the Empire entered its final, increasingly bureaucratic decades.

Small-denomination copper issues from minor ecclesiastical mints of this period are frequently overlooked, but the Ehrend reference documents this type precisely — Ehrend I#7/33 distinguishes it from related pfennig issues of the same reign.