2 Thaler Duchy of Brunswick (1815 - 1918) Silver William, Duke of ...

1839, Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, William (Duke). Scarce Silver Thaler Coin.

Mint Year: 1839
Reference: KM-1131.
Denomination: Thaler

Mint Place: Brunswick
Material: Silver (.750)

Weight: 22.27gm

Diameter: 34mm

Obverse: Bust of William as Duke of Brunswick right. Mint officials initials (CvC) below.

Legend: WILHELM HERZOG Z. BRAUNSCHWEIG U.L.

Reverse: Crowned composite coat-of-arms of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel cross order, which splits date (18-39) below.

Legend: EIN THELER XIV EINE F.M. 18-39

Edge Inscription: NEC ASPERA TERRENT ("By difficulties undaunted!")

The Duchy of Brunswick (German: Herzogtum Braunschweig) was a historical German state. Its capital was the city of Brunswick (Braunschweig). It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the course of the 19th-century history of Germany, the duchy was part of the German Confederation, the North German Confederation and from 1871 the German Empire. It was disestablished after the end of World War I, its territory incorporated into the Weimar Republic as the Free State of Brunswick. 

William, Duke of Brunswick (German: Wilhelm August Ludwig Maximilian Friedrich; 25 April 1806 – 18 October 1884), was ruling duke of the Duchy of Brunswick from 1830 until his death.

William was the second son of Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and after the death of his father in 1815, was under the guardianship of King George IV of the United Kingdom. He became a Prussian major in 1823. When his brother, Charles, was deposed as ruling duke by a rebellion in 1830, William took over the government provisionally. In 1831, a family law of the House of Guelph made William the ruling duke permanently. William left most government business to his ministers, spending most of his time at Oleśnica Castle in what is now southwestern Poland.

While William joined the Prussian-led North German Confederation in 1866, his relationship to Prussia was strained, since Prussia refused to recognize Ernest Augustus, Crown Prince of Hanover, his nearest male-line relative, as his heir, because of the Duke of Cumberland’s claim to the throne of Hanover. William died in 1884; he passed on his private possessions to the Duke of Cumberland. His death caused a constitutional crisis for Brunswick that lasted until the accession of Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, the son of the Crown Prince of Hanover, in 1913.