Denier Bracteate - Wolfgang of Dalberg

Wolfgang von Dalberg held the archiepiscopal see of Mainz for just three years before his death in 1601 — but his coinage tenure as elector was shaped less by brevity than by the catastrophic fiscal strain of the Long Turkish War bearing down on the Empire's finances. The bracteate denier belongs to a denomination so vestigial by the late sixteenth century that it survived largely through ecclesiastical conservatism; secular mints had abandoned the form generations earlier.

Mainz bracteates of this period are notoriously difficult to attribute without die references. MB#90 and Walther#213 remain the anchoring citations.