3 Pfennig

Ahlen, a small Westphalian town under the ecclesiastical authority of the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, issued copper pfennig coinage in the early seventeenth century during a period when chronic shortages of small-denomination specie forced German municipalities to produce their own fiduciary coinage. The Holy Roman Empire's inability to enforce consistent small-change policy across its fragmented territories left towns like Ahlen essentially self-sufficient in this respect.

The Weingärtner Westfalens attribution anchors this piece firmly within the regional Notmünzen tradition of the Münsterland.