Denier Bracteate - Frederick I Altenburg

Frederick I — Barbarossa — used Altenburg as an imperial palatinate and held court there on multiple occasions, making it one of the more administratively active mints of his reign. Bracteates from this mint are struck on such thin flans that obverse pressure alone creates the entire design, a technique that made dies wear rapidly and produced considerable variation between surviving pieces. Bonh#1165 is among the more localized of Barbarossa's issues, tied to Thuringian circulation rather than the broader imperial economy.