24 Kreuzer - Six Brothers

The "Six Brothers" designation refers to the joint reign of six Ernestine dukes — the sons of Duke Johann of Saxe-Weimar — who governed collectively after their father's death in 1605. This coin was struck during that unusual arrangement, which produced a proliferating series of multi-ruler issues that confound attribution to this day. The 1619–1621 window aligns with the opening of the Thirty Years' War, a conflict that immediately disrupted silver supply chains and mint operations across the German states.

The Kipper und Wipper crisis — the debasement spiral that swept the Holy Roman Empire between roughly 1619 and 1623 — makes coins from precisely this window suspect in terms of actual silver content, even when nominally struck to standard.