2 Thalers - August

Struck under Elector August of Saxony, one of the most fiscally capable rulers of sixteenth-century Germany, this double thaler dates to a period when the Saxon silver mines at Freiberg and Annaberg were among the most productive in Europe. August had reorganized the Saxon mining administration in the 1560s, and the large-flan multiple thalers of his reign were as much a demonstration of that productive capacity as they were circulating currency.

Schnee 723 is among the later die marriages of his reign — August died in February 1586 — and pieces from this period show the mature portrait type introduced after 1572.