5 Mark - Frederick III and Wilhelm II Pattern

1888 was the Year of Three Emperors. Wilhelm I died in March, Frederick III — already dying of laryngeal cancer — reigned for 99 days before his death in June, and Wilhelm II ascended in the same calendar year. This pattern was struck during that compressed succession, almost certainly produced to test or propose designs as the mint scrambled to prepare coinage for two new monarchs in rapid sequence. That Frederick III's cancer had been controversially misdiagnosed by British physician Morell Mackenzie months earlier made the urgency of the entire minting apparatus that much more chaotic.