3 Pfennigs - Ernest Louis

Ernest Louis died in 1739, meaning this issue falls within the final years of his reign over Hesse-Darmstadt — a period when the landgraviate was financially strained from his compulsive building projects and the maintenance of a court modeled, with some ambition and less money, on Versailles. The copper pfennig denominations of this era were workhorses of local commerce, circulating heavily through the Frankfurt trade corridor and surrounding market towns.

Hoffmeister 3651 is the standard reference for this type among specialist collectors of German states coinage.