The ''Dreipfenniggröschlein'', commonly called the ''Dreier'' or ''Dreyer'', was a

coin A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by ...

initially minted in the

Electorate of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony ( or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356 to 1806 initially centred on Wittenberg that came to include areas around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. It was a ...

from the 16th century. The Saxon coins referred to as ''Dreiers''Barber, Klaus (2015). ''Dreier. Altes Kleingeld'' in ''007 ist auf 17. Berühmte Zahlen und ihre Geschichten'', Cologne: Bastei Lübbe, ISBN 978-3-404-60821-8 and ISBN 3-404-60821-6, S. 70
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at Google Books were initially minted according to the coinage regulations of Duke George the Bearded from 1534 and were thus initially part of

Saxon coinage history The history of Saxon coinage or Meissen-Saxon coinage comprises three major periods: the high medieval regional pfennig period (bracteate period), the late medieval pfennig period and the thaler period, which ended with the introduction of the mar ...

. Four ''Dreiers'' were equivalent to 3 '' Zinsgroschen''. The coins were initially made of

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

or the silver/

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metal, metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have prop ...

, ''

billon Billon may refer to: * Billon (alloy), a metal alloy containing mostly copper or bronze with small quantity of silver People *Claudius Billon (1896–1944), French air force officer *Jean-Louis Billon (born 1964), Ivorian politician *Jonathan Le ...

''. The coins, which were stamped with the number "3" and were later only made of copper, spread as a means of payment in other states throughout Central and

Northern Germany Northern Germany (, ) is a linguistic, geographic, socio-cultural and historic region in the northern part of Germany which includes the coastal states of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Lower Saxony and the two city-states Hambur ...

up to the 19th century, including the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

and the

Duchy of Brunswick The Duchy of Brunswick () was a historical German state that ceased to exist in 1918. Its capital city, capital was the city of Braunschweig, Brunswick (). It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel ...

where they were known as ''Dreipfennigstücke'' (three pfennig pieces).Richard Klimpert: ''Lexikon der Münzen, Maße und Gewichte. Zählarten und Zeitgrößen aller Länder der Erde'', Berlin: C. Regenhardt, 1885, p. 63
Google-Books
/ref> But also in other European countries the ''Dreier'' was a common small coin.

References

External links

''Dreier'' of the city of Halberstadt, 1633
from the Cathedral Treasury and Cathedral of St. Stephen and St. Sixtus in Halberstadt, part of the Saxony-Anhalt Cultural Foundation, images and explanation via the portal

museum-digital museum-digital is a project of museums to collaboratively publish their data online. Increasingly, it has also been targeting inventorization. Having published information on over 281,000 objects in Germany and 95,000 objects in Hungary, the pro ...

{{Pfennig Coins of the Holy Roman Empire

See also

References

External links