3 Pfennig - Theodore Adolphus of Recke

Theodore Adolphus von der Recke served as Prince-Bishop of Paderborn from 1650 until his death in 1661, presiding over a diocese still recovering from the catastrophic disruption of the Thirty Years' War. The copper pfennig issues of this period were practical emergency solutions — silver was scarce, trade was depressed, and small denomination coinage in the German territories had essentially collapsed. Copper filled that gap across dozens of small ecclesiastical and secular states simultaneously, which is why so many minor German copper issues from the 1650s survive in such quantity relative to their original circulation importance.