4 Pfennig - Theodore Adolphus of Recke

Theodore Adolphus von der Recke served as Prince-Bishop of Paderborn during a period of exhausting reconstruction following the Thirty Years' War, which had left Westphalia economically gutted and its coinage systems fractured. Small copper issues like this 4 Pfennig were a practical necessity — silver was scarce, municipal and ecclesiastical mints were scrambling to fill the gap, and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 had only just restored enough political stability to attempt normal monetary operations. The multiple Weing references suggest die variety differentiation across the issue's six-year production span.