Album - German Commemoratives 1922-1957

Aha, two eagles again. This time it is the Prussian eagle holding Waldeck's CoA, and the German eagle on the other side. Waldeck had (since 1867, so even before the Deutsches Reich was founded) an accession treaty with Prussia, and thus limited sovereignty only. In 1926 Prussia canceled the treaty, Waldeck did not have the funds to be a state of its own, so it was annexed in 1929. (Pyrmont had already been "split off" before.) Today the territory is part of Waldeck-Frankenberg county in the state of Hesse.

The Constitution coin I like because of the repeated design elements such as the circular and horizontal lines. Would have preferred an eagle instead of the Hindenburg portrait though. Next year, by the way, a German €20 collector coin will be issued that commemorates the centennial.

Christian

 

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Arrived today!

 

Hello! Here the last one; "Die Fünf Reichsmark von 1932 D"

The oak, which has always been the symbol of "German strength and steadfastness", shows in the tangle of leaves some withered branches. According to the opinion of the people, these should be the ones based on of the Treaty of Versailles (Alsace-Lorraine, Northern Schleswig, West Prussia, Upper Silesia and Poznan). A question to the artist as to whether he had consciously applied the symbolism in his coin painting resulted in the surprising answer: "The vox populi was already right about the branches on the oak. . . "

The 5-mark oak is an old oak tree in Kellenhusen in the district of East Holstein in Schleswig-Holstein, which is protected as a natural monument. It is a common oak about 26 metres high with a trunk circumference of about 6 metres and an estimated age of 350 years. The oak received its name because it served Maximilian Dasio as a model for this 5 Reichsmark coin with the motif of a "oak tree" minted from 1927 to 1933.

 

Like the design. This coin was actually a circulation piece, first issued in 1927. In fact, the German government had the coin minted in excessive quantities way above the demand. The seigniorage (about two thirds of the face value) was apparently quite tempting.

Whether Dasio found his tree model in Kellenhusen, or whether that was clever local PR, I don't know. That particular oak tree is almost dead by the way, but they have a few more old ones around there ...

Christian

 

Thanks Christian

 

At this point, the set contains 27 of the 40 coins that make up the collection. Among those 13 missing pieces are obviously the rarest and most expensive, like 3 and 5 Mark 1927 Tübingen, 5 Mark 1927 Bremerhaven, 3 Mark 1928 Dürer, and 3 Mark 1928 Dinkelsbühl.

But I also think it has very nice and rare pieces...

 

Hello! Another to the series, this time the Drei Reichsmark of 1931, Berlin mint, commemorative of the centennial of the death of Baron von Stein. This coin is one of two commemoratives issued for 1931, the other honored the reconstruction of Magdeburg after the Thirty Year's War.

The obverse inscription "Ich habe nur ein Vaterland, und das heisst Deutschland" (I only have one country, and that means Germany), is a phrase attributed to Stein, written in a letter to Ernst Friedrich Herbert of Münster, a German statesman and politician in the service of the United Kingdom and the House of Hannover, arround 1824.

 

Kind of strange to simply see the last name, Stein. The same "Ich habe ..." motto, by the way, can also be found on the edge of the Stein 5 DM coin that the Federal Republic of Germany issued in 1981. With that reply he wanted to emphasize that he was not primarily a Prussian but a German. The GDR (East G.) honored him on a 20 M coin in that year.

Side note: The 1931 coin was designed by Rudolf Bosselt who, ten years earlier, had also designed the Westphalian "notgeld" pieces featuring Stein. So "Stein on coins" can be an interesting mini-collection by itself ...

Christian

 

Thanks Christian. This is my Westphalian set

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/wesphalian-set-1921-1923.284727/#post-2535615

 

Here is the last one to join the series, this time, it's about the 5 silver marks of 1934, the period of the Third Reich, celebrating the 175th Anniversary Friedrich Schiller. F Mint, (Stuttgart) and a total mintage of 100,000 coins. The edge its reeded whit the text: "Ans Vaterland, ans teure schließ dich an" If I'm not mistaken, these lines belong to a verse or a song by Schiller?

 

You are not mistaken. That is from Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell", and an old Swiss nobleman says that to his son or nephew. At that stage, the younger man admires the powerful Austrian rulers while the elder is on the people's side so to say.

Interestingly, in the Tell drama, Schiller also wrote about the "power of tyrants" that makes resistance legitimate. At least initially many nazis liked the concept of heroic figures fighting against evil oppressors, but in the early 1940s Hitler changed his mind. Wilhelm Tell was not shown in theaters any more, school libraries suddenly did not have the book ...

Christian

 

Hello! Here the last one! The 5 Reichsmarks commemorating the world flight of the Graf Zeppelin.

The airship LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" (built 1927/28) took off on August 15, 1929 for a world flight under the leadership of Dr. Hugo Eckener with 61 persons in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance and flew over Leipzig, Berlin, Königsberg, Ural, Siberia, Port Arthur, to Tokyo (about 11,000 km in four days) and after a four-day Break continues to San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Lakehurst, Friedrichshafen. On 4. 9. 1929 the world flight of almost 50. 000 km was finished.

This airship, was named in honor of the German airship pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who reached the rank of Count in the German nobility (according to German usage the particle "von" in the name is omitted when a title such as "Graf" is used).

This coin type is not the most rarest, but still expensive, was minted in Stuttgart with a low coinage of 40.120 pieces. Not in the best condition, but still pretty, don't you think?

 

When Ferdinand von Zeppelin died in 1917, Germany still had "nobility", and he had simply inherited the title from his father. With the end of the monarchy in 1918, the country also did away with nobility, so for the last 100 years, the "Graf" or "Fürst" etc. has merely been parts of the name.

You may see references to "Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin" (pre-1918 use), to "Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin" or to "Ferdinand Graf Zeppelin". But when it comes to naming objects - streets, schools, etc. - then "Graf Zeppelin" is most common. Same thing with the LZ 127 on this coin.

The Zeppelin company still exists by the way. But these days they make semi-rigid airships (somewhere between blimps and the older rigid zeppelins), and you can book tours ...

This zeppelin flight coin was designed by Franz Krischker; I think he worked at the mint in Berlin (but am not sure). And yes, mintages of Weimar Republic commems are a mystery. In some cases they are really low, in others fairly high, sometimes you have a 3 RM and 5 RM "couple" (as in this case), sometimes just a 3 RM piece.

Christian

 

This is a small pet peeve of mine, but I appreciate how you have the obverse pic of the coin correctly oriented. Most of the time when I see these coins photographed or even slabbed they are oriented such that the airship is perfectly level, not tilted slightly upward as in your post correctly depicts the type.

 

Thanks for the comments guys, they're a incentive to keep going. .

This is the thirtieth coin that I incorporate into the series, and as Christian says, it is a mystery or at least very striking, the disparity between the quantities minted, not only from one year to another, even in the same coin from one mint to another. Something I always wanted to know, what criteria would have been used to determine which coins would be minted in both the three and five Reichsmarks, and why some were only worth 3 Reichsmarks. Why is it that when chose only one value, always chose the value of three Reichsmarks, and never the value of five?

Anyway, a very nice series that I find very pleasant and challenging, and that I will try to complete..

 

Some great questions that I would like to know the answers for as well!

The mintage disparity could be a number of factors: lack of supply (of blanks) in some years, anticipating less need for the coins, issues at the mint, higher costs of production, etc... (all guesses on my part and the truth may even be a combination of all of these).

You have made great progress! I enjoy seeing all the coins posted so far and look forward to more!

 

Hello! Here the last one! The drei Reichsmark of Bremerhaven

This type, issued in 1927 only, was struck at Berlin, and commemorates the centennial of Bremerhaven, the seaport of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen.

Was coined in the values of 3 and 5 Reichsmarks, precisely, the piece of five is one of the scarcer five mark coin of the Weimar period, together with the five Reichsmark "Tubingen" of 1927, and the piece "Goethe" of 1932.
The total mintage was 150.000 pieces.



Now, with this new addition, there are only nine coins left for the album to look complete, now, looking back, I remember when I got the album, empty of course, and placed it on the first coin... it was, and is, a great challenge to try to complete this short and varied series that at some point had its controversy about the periods it covered..

Only nine coins, my friends,... so close and so far..

 

Bremerhaven is located where the Weser river flows into the North Sea - and was founded because the city (and port) of Bremen was further inland, where the river was not deep enough for bigger ships any more. In the mid-19c by the way Bremerhaven was a major port for emigrants from Europe to North America. Today the state of Bremen, the smallest in Germany in terms of area and population, consists of precisely two cities - Bremen and Bremerhaven.

Yes, it will be a challenge to fill the remaining "holes" in the album. Good luck - and persistence ...

Christian