Reichs thaler = 28 groschen. Reichs gulden thaler of 1559 = 24 " Philipps thaler = 30-2/3 " Silver groschen, = 234 to the mark, 14 loth, 4 grs. fine. " schillingen, 306 " (So that the mark of fine silver = 12 fl. 9 kr.)
Finding it impossible to maintain this system, they altered it in 1617, and finally in 1622 conformed with Higher Saxony, setting the Reichs thaler at 24 silver groschens.
As settled in this and the following year, the system of Electoral and Lower Saxony was as follows:--
Reichs thaler = 24 gulden groschen. Gulden thaler of 1559 = 21 " Philipps thaler and gold gulden = 30 " Ducat = 36 "
Contemporaneously (1623), the Brandenburg system was as follows:--
Reichs thaler = 24 good groschen. Gold gulden = 27 " Ducat = 38 "
Through the remaining period of the Thirty Years' War very little is on record with regard to the German Mint system. The closing period of the strife was marked by such complaints as to excess of depreciated small specie as had prevailed in 1620, bringing with it a further enhancement of the price of the larger silver specie. In 1665, accordingly, the three Higher Circles, Franconia, Bavaria, and Swabia met together. They found on a trial that the mark of fine silver was selling commercially at from 14 florins 15 kreutzers to 14 florins 20 kreutzers, and that it was impossible to mint the larger silver specie unless the Reichs thaler were set at 96 kreutzers. This would raise the mark of fine silver to 14 florins 24 kreutzers. At the same time it was resolved to declare the ducat at 3 florins (mark of fine gold = 203 florins 49 kreutzers, 3-31/71 pfennige), the ratio being accordingly changed from 15 to 14-1/8.
In 1667 this scheme was provisionally adopted _in comitiis_. From this scheme Saxony and Brandenburg held off, maintaining that the advance of the Reichs thaler was not sufficient. They accordingly, in the same year, adopted the so-called _Zinnaische_ standard, setting the Reichs thaler at 1 florin 45 kreutzers (105 kreutzers), equal to 18 good groschens (mark of fine silver = 10-1/2 thalers, or 15 florins 45 kreutzers).
The enactment of this system gave rise to a new species of heavy silver coins:--
Guldener = 2/3 thaler. " = 60 kr. " = 16 good groschen. " = 32 schillingen.
