4 Pfennig

Münster's small copper issues of this period were a direct consequence of the city's chronic shortage of fractional coinage following the devastations of the Thirty Years' War and the prolonged friction between civic and episcopal authority over monetary rights. The Prince-Bishops and the city council disputed minting privileges repeatedly throughout the seventeenth century, producing an irregular sequence of local issues that filled gaps left by larger territorial coinages.

KM#304 falls within a five-year window when the city asserted independent striking rights for everyday transactions. Die workmanship on Münster copper from this decade is notoriously inconsistent — a known characteristic of the series, not a specimen-specific flaw.