2 Thalers / 3½ Gulden - Maximilian II

Bavaria issued this double thaler during Maximilian II's reign at a moment of acute political pressure — the 1848 revolutions had forced his father Ludwig I to abdicate, and the new king was navigating constitutional reform while managing a liberal parliament he neither fully trusted nor could simply ignore. The dual denomination stamped on these coins, simultaneously expressing value in thalers and gulden, was a direct consequence of the Dresden Coinage Convention of 1838, which attempted to reconcile the north German thaler standard with the south German gulden system into a single framework.

The series ran only until 1856, when the Vienna Coinage Treaty began pushing German states toward greater monetary uniformity.