24 Mariengroschen - Ernest August II of York

Ernest August II, Duke of York and Albany, held the Bishopric of Osnabrück under the terms of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which established an alternating succession between Protestant and Catholic bishops. As a younger son of George I of Great Britain, he never ruled Hanover but governed Osnabrück from 1716 until his death in 1728. The arrangement was unusual enough that a British prince administered a German ecclesiastical territory almost entirely by treaty obligation rather than election or hereditary right.

The Mariengroschen was a north German accounting unit deeply embedded in Lower Saxon commerce, and these larger 24-Mariengroschen pieces functioned as trade coins across the Weser region.