2 Thalers - Dorothea Centennial of the Reformation

Quedlinburg Abbey issued this double thaler to mark the centennial of Luther's 1517 Ninety-Five Theses — a politically charged gesture for an imperial abbey that had navigated the Reformation by converting to Lutheranism in 1539 under pressure from the surrounding Duchy of Saxony. The abbess at the time of striking was Dorothea von Hohenlohe-Neuenstein, whose name anchors the issue and whose tenure coincided almost exactly with the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War the following year.

The 1617 centennial produced a wave of commemorative thalers across Protestant German states, but abbey issues are considerably scarcer than those of the major secular mints.