Denier Bracteate - Frederick II

Frederick II of Brandenburg — "Iron Tooth" — abdicated in 1470 in favor of his brother Albert Achilles, ending a reign marked by bitter conflict with Berlin and Cölln, whose civic privileges he forcibly curtailed in 1448 in what local chroniclers called the "Berlin Indulgence." These thin bracteate deniers, struck from a single die through a sheet of silver, were already an archaic production method by the 1470s, persisting in Brandenburg well after most German mints had abandoned the technique. The attribution window spanning two decades reflects genuine die-dating difficulty with this series.