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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;chrisild, post: 2953067, member: 39&quot;]The commemorative coins of the German Democratic Republic were melted down in two &quot;phases&quot;: first around 1980 (the Schön catalog says 1976-1982) in order to have silver for future issues. Then around 1990 (Schön: 1987-1991), partly for the same reason as before, partly because many were turned in after the &quot;East-West&quot; currency union had been established.</p><p><br /></p><p>At least we know how many coins were melted down. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />&nbsp; Such figures are not known when it comes to DM coins from the Federal Republic of Germany, even though Vebeg (a federal government agency that sells a wide variety of products which the &quot;feds&quot; do not need any more) auctions &quot;decoined&quot; pieces off from time to time. They do that with euro coins too, by the way. One example from a few years ago: about 18,500 kg scrap metal from decoined €10 collector coins in CuNi. In a German coin forum somebody tried doing the maths and wrote that, based on so and so many Vebeg auctions, about one fourth of the €10 CuNi issue volume was destroyed. (They simply were not popular; today the collector coins issued at face are silver again, but with a €20 face value.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Back to the GDR coins, it is interesting to look at the themes of the commems. Some had relatively high mintages, were CuNi, had raised rims and (often) &quot;socialist&quot; themes. Those could be relatively easily acquired even by GDR citizens. Then there were export pieces, mostly silver and with themes that people in the Federal Republic (West G.) might find appealing too. Getting one of these in the GDR (East G.) was more difficult.</p><p><br /></p><p>Christian[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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