A Bürgermeisterpfennig is a small silver coin that was issued in Hamburg after the death of a Mayor of Hamburg on the occasion of his funeral and which depicted the coat of arms as well as the biographical information and dates of office of the deceased mayor.
The family of Mayor Johann Schrött, who died in 1676, first had the idea of having their own coin minted for this purpose.
Several Bürgermeisterpfennigs have become quite valuable and there are also isolated cases where several coins of different weights and sizes were made at the same time.
In more recent times, there has been a move away from large, ceremonial funeral processions, so there has been no distribution of gifts to students and other mourners, and it has been sufficient to distribute the pfennigs to members of the Hamburg Senate, Hamburg College of Elders and to the relatives and friends of the deceased.
As a rule, they depict the family crest of the deceased with their name, dates of birth, election and death on the obverse and emblems or allusions to their character and merits on the reverse.