5 Mark - Louis III Pattern

Patterns struck for Louis III of Bavaria are among the least-documented pieces of late Imperial German numismatics. Louis had only just assumed the regency in 1912 following the incapacitation of his father Ludwig III — the nomenclature around the succession is itself a minor historical tangle — and this gold piece appears to have been produced in anticipation of a coinage that was never formally authorized for circulation. Within a year, the outbreak of war in 1914 would make large gold coinage politically and practically untenable across the German states.