I was looking through a box of foreign coins I forgot about for 30 years or so and came upon this 1935 5 Reichsmark. The obverse has two swastikas and the German Eagle. The reverse has the Potsdam Church and the MM. It is 89.6% silver:
Think I have a couple of those somewhere. Surprisingly many religious leaders in Europe were tolerant of Nazism.
I have a couple of these and they have an interesting history. There are actually two variations of this coin...one with date and one without. This is the no date version. The date version has the date March 31, 1933, next to the church. The depiction of the church really had nothing to do with religion on these coins and more to do with tying the Nazi movement to previous German Imperialism. The Garrison Church in Potsdam also had strong ties to democratic elections. The first free elected Potsdam Magistrate was inaugurated there. As a result, there was a sentiment that using this location would give "free" credability to the Nazis. So, on March 21, 1933, the Nazi party conducted the opening ceremony for the new Reichstag Parliament at this location. This was the day the Third Reich was born. To tie it to the previous empire (the Second Reich)...the opening ceremony was on the same day as Kaiser Wilhelm I had opened his new Reichstag Parliament in 1871.
Your '35 has the F mm for the Stuttgart mint. My '34 has the E shaped mm for the Muldenhutten mint. The ones with the date on the reverse had much smaller mintages and are worth a bit more across all grades.
Early on, it may have been the fact that the Nazis' were seemingly tolerant of the protestant and catholic churches, only "bad-mouthing" the Jews. Organized acts of violence against the Jews had not yet begun.
Here is a 50 Million Mark coin from 1923, the US Mint might soon be minting similar. Remember they were talking about a minting a trillion dollar platinum coin to cover the debt?
I like the version without the swastikas for sure. Here is a '36 5 mark with Von Hindenburg on the reverse.
I found it here; https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces20321.html its the N#20321 its 5.6 g. It says Non-curculating coin & Demonetized. Was it worth 50M marks in that year? Do you know what it was used for?
They are German notgeld. Issued primarily by German towns, the low denominations were used as emergency money during the hyperinflation after WWI. There were also many that were issued specifically for collectors.
I believe the high denomination Westphalen pieces were made for collectors. By 1923, the Value of the German mark was plummeting so quickly, workers would get paid at the end of the workday and immediately go to the store as it would be worth significantly less the next day. One of the big inconvenience was when the printers went on strike and there were delays in issuing higher denominations
It's what they called "Notgeld" which means "necessity money." Basically...the German equivalent to hard times tokens here in the US (but throw in hyperinflation). They were privately minted but intended for commerce. Some were collector issues though.
I'm wondering if anyone has a billion or trillion mark 1923 coin they would like photographed for free? I'd like to capture images of one for an upcoming book but I don't know anyone with one, and I can't seem to find one to buy online that isn't outrageously priced.
