⅙ Thaler - John Philip of Walderdorff

John Philip of Walderdorff served as Archbishop-Elector of Trier from 1756 until his death in 1768, and this fractional thaler falls squarely in the early years of his tenure — a period dominated by the Seven Years' War, which devastated the Rhineland economically and militarily. Trier's position along the Moselle made it a thoroughfare for French and Prussian troop movements alike, and small silver fractions like this one were essential for the kind of daily transactions that larger denominations couldn't accommodate in a disrupted economy.

The two-year emission window of 1757–1758 suggests a short-run response to wartime monetary pressure rather than a routine issue.