While issued by Freidrich Ulrich of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, this multiple 5 Reichstaler was struck at the Zellerfeld mint under the auspices of Mintmaster Hans Lauffer. Lauffer belonged to a storied minting family, headed by his father Wolf. Hans’s sons, grandsons, and potentially great grandsons (depending on how the generational lines fall) were also mint masters! Wolf was born in 1554 and the last Lauffer passed in 1709. Interestingly, Hans is perhaps better known for the numerous copper jeton’s that the Zellerfeld mint issued during his tenure. In fact, when this Löser was struck in 1620, the mint had only been operating for around 20 years. It was opened in 1600 to facilitate the coining of the mass quantities of silver mined nearby in Harz, this mint became quite skilled at issuing large format silver coins.