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Germany – German States. Kingdom of Saxony
Johann Georg II of Saxony, 1854 -1873
1662 CR Silver Thaler 45mm Dresden mint.
Reference: KM# 474, Dav-7617, Kahnt-388
Certification: PCGS XF 45 191837.45/38746735
Johann right with sword held over shoulder.
Coat-of-arms, intricate designs around.
You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime Guarantee of Authenticity.
 Johann George II (31 May 1613 – 22 August 1680) was the Elector of Saxony from 1656 to 1680. He belonged to the Albertine line of the House of Wettin. He was the third (fourth in order of birth) ] but eldest surviving son of the Elector Johann George I, Elector of Saxony and Magdalene Sybille of Prussia, his second spouse. ] He succeeded his father as Elector of Saxony when John George I died on 8 October 1656.
In 1657 John George made an arrangement with his three brothers with the object of preventing disputes over their separate territories, and in 1664 he entered into friendly relations with Louis XIV. He received money from the French king, but the existence of a strong anti-French party in Saxony induced him occasionally to respond to the overtures of the emperor Leopold I.
_-_Order_of_the_Garter_stall_plate_-_St_George's_Chapel.png/220px-John_George_II,_Elector_of_Saxony_(1613–1680)_-_Order_of_the_Garter_stall_plate_-_St_George's_Chapel.png) The elector’s primary interests were not in politics, but in music and art. He adorned Dresden, which under him became the musical centre of Germany; welcoming foreign musicians and others he gathered around him a large and splendid court, and his capital was the constant scene of musical and other festivals. He commissioned the building of the first opera house, the Opernhaus am Taschenberg.
In 1658 John George was accepted into the Fruitbearing Society, through the patronage of Duke William of Saxe-Weimar. ]
 His enormous expenditure on the arts compelled John George in 1661 to grant greater control over monetary matters to the estates, a step which laid the foundation of the later system of finance in Saxony. Also, his government was less effective in establishing absolutist rule and a standing army than were Bohemia or Prussia.
John George’s reign saw the slow economic reconstruction of Saxony after the Thirty Years’ War. New trades and manufactures developed, such as textiles, hard coal and glass. Locally mined silver filled the Electorate’s empty treasury, and the Leipzig Trade Fair and the Bohemian Exulanten of 1654 also stimulated economic activity. ]
John George died in Freiberg on 22 August 1680.
 Saxony (German: Sachsen, Upper Sorbian: Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony, Upper Sorbian: Swobodny stat Sakska), is a landlocked federal state of Germany, bordering the federal states of Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland (Lower Silesian and Lubusz Voivodeships) and the Czech Republic (Karlovy Vary, Liberec, and Ústí nad Labem Regions). Its capital is Dresden, and its largest city is Leipzig.
Saxony is the tenth largest of Germany’s sixteen states, with an area of 18,413 square kilometres (7,109 sq mi), and the sixth most populous, with 4 million people.
 The history of the state of Saxony spans more than a millennium. It has been a medieval duchy, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, a kingdom, and twice a republic.
The area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds roughly to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and the Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
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