⅓ Reichsthaler - Max Gandolf von Kuenburg Lippe-Detmold, Countermarked

Max Gandolf von Küenburg, Archbishop of Salzburg from 1668 to 1687, was among the most aggressive enforcers of the Counter-Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire — his expulsion of Protestants from the Defereggental in 1684 was only the largest of several forced removals he ordered. The countermark on this piece reflects a different kind of administrative assertion: the practice of overstamping foreign or earlier coinage to validate it for continued circulation within the archbishopric's monetary jurisdiction, a necessity in a region where silver coin from dozens of issuing authorities moved freely across porous borders.

The Lippe-Detmold host coin beneath the Salzburg countermark places the original striking in northwest Germany — a considerable geographic remove from Alpine Salzburg.