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2 Pfennigs - Christian I, Augustus, Rudolph, Louis I and John Casimir
| Issuer | Principality of Anhalt (German States) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1621 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered |
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| Obverse description | Central field displays the two-fold arms of Anhalt, depicting a vertically divided shield with a stylized bear or eagle motif on the left impaling the Anhalt serpent or branch device on the right, all set within a plain circular border. The shield occupies the majority of the flan, consistent with the crude hammered style typical of early seventeenth-century German Pfennig coinage. The date numeral '21' (for 1621) appears in the upper field above the shield. The overall execution is characteristic of the irregular, roughly struck small billon issues produced for the joint rule of the Anhalt princes. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse script | Latin |
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| Additional information |
1621 was the worst possible year to be minting billon coinage in the Holy Roman Empire. The Kipper- und Wipperzeit — the "clipper and see-saw" inflation crisis — was then at its absolute peak, with dozens of German mints deliberately debasing their output to profit from the chaos before neighbors caught on. Anhalt's five-way joint rulership, a product of the house's stubborn adherence to inheritance partition, meant five signatures on a monetary policy that was already collapsing across the Empire.
KM#26 was struck under that collective authority of Christian I, Augustus, Rudolph, Louis I, and John Casimir simultaneously — an administrative arrangement that ended definitively in 1630.