2 Thalers - August William Death

August William of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel died in March 1731, the last male of his line, extinguishing a cadet branch that had survived the consolidation pressures of the Holy Roman Empire for over a century. His death triggered an inheritance dispute that ultimately accelerated the absorption of Wolfenbüttel's territories into the broader Hanoverian orbit. Death thalers of this type — struck as commemorative mourning pieces rather than circulating currency — were standard practice among German Protestant courts, distributed to court officials and nobility as funerary keepsakes.

The Dav GT II reference places this squarely in the German Gedächtnis Thaler tradition, with the double-thaler format chosen to accommodate the extended Latin memorial inscription.