50 Pfennig - Wilhelm II type 2 - small shield - Pattern

The "small shield" reverse on this 1901 pattern represents one of several design trials conducted as the German Empire weighed revisions to the 50 Pfennig coinage. None of the pattern variants from this exercise entered circulation — the denomination was ultimately discontinued entirely in 1903, leaving the existing J.15 type to serve out the series. Surviving examples passed largely into institutional and private collections without ever seeing a cashier's drawer.