Recently I purchase a lot of older German, Italian, Belgium, and France coins from a co-worker. Most ofthe coin were fairly common. However I found 4 coins from the German States that turned out to be very interesting. These are Verrechnungs and Gutschrifts Tokens. Minted in aluminum during the era of hyperinflation, they were used due to the lack of available local coins. Sort of like emergency coinage. The first is a 1924 10 Verrechnungs-Pfennig from Bremen. KM# Tn3. There is no date on the coin. Mintage was 695,000. Next is the 1923 5/100 Verrechnungsmarke from Hamburg. KM# Tn2. Mintage 8,100,000 The 1923 1/10 Verrechnungsmarke is also from Hamburg. KM# Tn3. Mintage 8,500,000 The last is a 1923 5 Hunderstel Gutschriftsmarke from Schleswig-Holstein. KM# Tn1. Mintage 3,330,000 I would grade these as Schon to Sehr schon. I hope you find these as interesting as I do. Thanks for looking.
Those are fascinating for multiple reasons, they appear to be semi-officially issued by the Lander(German State) and would have to be the last pieces issued, up until 1918 they had the privilege of issuing coins of 2 RM and higher. I knew that there were some in the older hyper-inflated currency but these are in the new Rentenmark/Reichsmark currency.
I think they are more like promisary notes. Krause lists them as "metalliic indebtness receipts used for commercial and banking purposeses due to lack of available subsidiary coinage. These tokens could be redeemed in sufficient quantities." Whatever that means.
I kind of view them as part notgeld, part token, and part coin. Sort of an ambiguous existence since they were semi-officially issued apparently but only for a very temporary time.
Don't have my numismatic knowledge aka literature with me, but as far as I remember, those pieces were issued in the final phase of the hyperinflation period and were based on some fixed dollar rate. Very shortly afterwards, however, the Rentenmark and then the Reichsmark were introduced, so these Verrechnungsmark pieces became obsolete ... Christian
