Denier Bracteate - Gero of Schermke

Gero of Schermke served as Bishop of Halberstadt from 1160 until his death in 1177, a tenure coinciding with the peak of Frederick Barbarossa's conflicts with Henry the Lion — tensions that deeply affected the Saxon ecclesiastical territories. Halberstadt bracteates of this period are among the thinnest and most technically demanding coins produced in medieval Germany, struck on a single die with the image pressing through to the reverse as a mirror incuse.

Berger 1297 is documented but genuinely scarce in the market. The Bishopric's minting rights in this period derived from imperial grant, not episcopal assumption.