6 Pfennig - Julius Ernest Kipper

Julius Ernest of Dannenberg issued this coin during the Kipper- und Wipperzeit, the currency crisis of 1618–1623 in which hundreds of small German states deliberately debased their coinage, farmed out minting rights to private contractors, and flooded neighboring territories with underweight billon pieces before their own populations could react. Dannenberg was a tiny principality within the Brunswick-Lüneburg orbit, with little economic weight of its own — which made it, paradoxically, an ideal vehicle for this kind of opportunistic minting.

The crisis ultimately forced a general recall and recoinage across the Empire by 1623.