⅙ Thaler - Frederick I

Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg in 1690 was still consolidating its identity as a distinct duchy — Frederick I had only inherited it in 1680 following the partition of Saxe-Gotha among the seven sons of Ernest the Pious. That division created a cluster of tiny Ernestine territories each pressing their own coinage, which accounts for the bewildering variety of Thaler fractions attributable to this corner of Thuringia across a single generation.

The sixth-Thaler denomination was a practical response to chronic small-change shortages in the Saxon states during the latter half of the seventeenth century.