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<p>[QUOTE="Neal, post: 3098141, member: 43872"]On the date given as the issue date on the German bill, the 1000 marks could have been taken to a bank and exchanged for 50 twenty mark gold coins, for a total of 10.2 ounces of gold. At $20 per ounce that would have been about $200 US at the time, or about $13,000 in gold today. But Germany paid for World War I almost entirely by borrowing instead of taxing, expecting to pay it back out of reparations when they won. When they lost World War I they were saddled with huge debts, both as reparations under the Treaty of Paris, payable in gold to the Allies, and as war bonds, payable in marks. With no money to pay the bonds, the Government let the German mark inflate. Worth about 4.2 marks to the then current US dollar in 1914, by early 1923 your bill would have been worth about a US dime. By November 1923 they were trading at 4.2 trillion marks to $1 US. It would have taken 4,200,000,000 of your bills to be worth a dollar. In theory, this made the billions in war bonds payable out of pocket change. The story is told as true that a woman who could not easily enter a crowded store with her basket of cash just left it on the street while she shopped. Sure enough, when she returned someone had stolen her basket. But they left the money. In November 1923 they started over with a new currency. Many of the trillions of worthless paper bills were eventually recycled as scrap paper. These bills are still extremely common, but I love the history behind them.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Neal, post: 3098141, member: 43872"]On the date given as the issue date on the German bill, the 1000 marks could have been taken to a bank and exchanged for 50 twenty mark gold coins, for a total of 10.2 ounces of gold. At $20 per ounce that would have been about $200 US at the time, or about $13,000 in gold today. But Germany paid for World War I almost entirely by borrowing instead of taxing, expecting to pay it back out of reparations when they won. When they lost World War I they were saddled with huge debts, both as reparations under the Treaty of Paris, payable in gold to the Allies, and as war bonds, payable in marks. With no money to pay the bonds, the Government let the German mark inflate. Worth about 4.2 marks to the then current US dollar in 1914, by early 1923 your bill would have been worth about a US dime. By November 1923 they were trading at 4.2 trillion marks to $1 US. It would have taken 4,200,000,000 of your bills to be worth a dollar. In theory, this made the billions in war bonds payable out of pocket change. The story is told as true that a woman who could not easily enter a crowded store with her basket of cash just left it on the street while she shopped. Sure enough, when she returned someone had stolen her basket. But they left the money. In November 1923 they started over with a new currency. Many of the trillions of worthless paper bills were eventually recycled as scrap paper. These bills are still extremely common, but I love the history behind them.[/QUOTE]
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