I'm inquiring for a friend; here are pics of his 1991 - 1 Deutsche Mark Any input on collecting these? and Worth? Also - Any known varieties to look out for? Thanks in advance for your time and information! :hail:
Schön #108 [Jäger #385]: 1 D-Mark (K-N) 1950, 1954-2000. Adler. Rs. Wertziffer zwischen Eichenblättern KM# 110 MARK 5.5000 g., Copper-Nickel, 23.5 mm. Obv: Eagle Rev: Denomination flanked by oak leaves, date below The coin in question seems to be circulated and is worth 0.5€ in this grade. This coin shares the same fate as most modern circulated strikes, they're mass produced and rather worthless with some exceptions to be made. The coins from 1950 and 1954-1968 are interesting for collectors (that's at least where I would make the cut) and to some minor extend for the last years (mintsets only and low mintage numbers). The entire mintset series for 1991, that's five individual mintsets for the Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Hamburg mint costs roughly 50€, with all coins (5 DM, 2 DM Schumacher, 2 DM Strauss, 2 DM Erhardt, 1 DM, 50 Pf, 10 Pf, 5Pf, 2 Pf and 1 Pf) in brilliant uncirculated (Gem) condition. The 1 Mark coin of the German Empire may be of greater interest for him, and all the coins are made of silver too (KM# 14, Schön #18, Jäger #17).
I have a few of these too. I think I actually brought them back from Germany. But I do not collect them like I do the 5 mark coins which are made of silver. Well, at least the 1951 to 1974 years are.
There aren't a lot of exceptions to this rule but over time I believe a lot more will be found. Almost all moderns are pretty readily available in Grades below Unc. The exceptions are where coins circulated for a very long time so they all wore out. This would apply to the larger denomination Portuguese coins for instance. But even among the German coinage something like a '60-J one mark would bring a very large premium in nice XF. Other exceptions will likely appear among coins that were recalled or were heavily melted. This applies to lots of higher denomination coinage and even lower denominations in countries like India where coinage was used in lieu of scrap metal by the people. Low denomination coinage isn't redeemed in high percentages so generally will be common in XF in the future.
Here is a 1915 J German 1-mark silver coin. Sometimes they can be found for the price of silver. IMO this one has attractive toning. (Sorry the photos are a little washed-out). I got it at the Liberty Coin Show in West Haven CT this last Sunday.
Cladking I really like to read your posts, of the Portuguese coins which do you mean in particular (my quick guess is the 25 Escudo 1979/1980/1985 for the Cu-Ni coins, weren't the large denom. silver coins also horded at that point already)?
Unfortunately I realized too late that the early dates, as you quote, were relatively scarce and worth keeping. I wonder how many high grade 1 Deutsche Mark 1954 G's and 1955 G's I spent at face value before realizing that they were worth saving. Fortunately, I did eventually manage to put away as souvenir quite a few of the early dates before the DM was retired in 2001, including 54s and 55s found in circulation. Somehow, I miss the old Deutsche Mark.
In this case I was referring to somewhat older coins; the 50c and 1E minted from 1924 to 1968. These were very heavily circulated and even though they are attractive designs they never got much interest. Most of the pre-WWII issues are scarce in Unc and even in XF despite the very high mintages. They also issued debased silver higher mintages but these appear to have good premiums more because of the low mintages than because they were completely overlooked. People saved them but they didn't save many because they were hard to locate. At this time almost all of the few modern collectors seek Unc coins so the few moderns that are tough in XF usually have very low prices. So far I haven't been able to identify any of the later date (post 1971) Portuguese coins that might be scarce or grossly undervalued. They all appear to be available. However the pressure of demand hasn't affected these yet so it's entirely possible there's some wheat among this chaffe. The early '70's 10E are not as easy as the book suggests and nice examples are much less common. Some of these coins like the 1980 25E have very low mintages so it's impossible for very many to survive in Unc. It's probable there will be some winners here but I don't know which ones. As with most moderns the low prices are caused by a dearth of demand and not by a large supply though there are some extremely common modern Portuguese.
