I have a few German euro coins that I got in Europe, and that my cousin, who worked in Garmisch as a civilian employee of the US Army, gave to me. I know the small letters are the mintmarks, but I don't know to which mints they refer. Can I get a little help? Thanks.
Also on pre-Euro coins: E = Muldenhutten (In the former East Germany) B = Vienna from 1938-44 and several others for specific German States pre-WW I.
Thanks to both. Now I'll have to go back and check my East German, FRG, and Nazi coins! Any idea why they those chose those letters for mintmarks, rather than the city letters, as we do? And are any of these mintmarks particularly rare, or even mildly so?
Once you through in C for Frankfurt (1866-1879) and H for Darmstadt (1872-1882). It looks like they are just using the alphabets, but why they chose to do that I am not sure. Probably just for simplicity sake.
I like this one. Some say Vienna is and was part of Austria, but back then AH had another idea. So, it is a "German" mintmark used in what had been part of Austria proir to Austria's annexation (not invasion).
On vacation . Well, actually I am back now ... As for why German mint marks are not abbreviations of the city names, well, that has historical reasons. Before the German Empire was established in 1871, most countries in that area had just one mint, if they had one at all. Now Prussia had several mints and sort of "numbered" them using letters, with Berlin being A. After 1871, the German Empire used basically the same system. The order of the states followed the order in which they were listed in the constitution, and the Kingdom of Prussia was the first, so it continued to use A for Berlin, used B for Hannover, and C for Frankfurt. Next were the Kingdom of Bavaria, with D for Munich, and the Kingdom of Saxony, with E for Dresden (until 1887) and then Muldenhütten. F was Stuttgart (Kingdom of Württemberg), G was Karlsruhe (Grand Duchy of Baden), H was Darmstadt (Grand Duchy of Hesse), I was not used (could be mixed up with J), and J was Hamburg (Free City of Hamburg). K was planned for Strasbourg but the mint there was not (re-)opened. The only "German" mint that actually used a city initial was Tabora in East Africa. It had a T on the 1916 issues. As for Vienna, well, between 1938 and 1945 it was part of Hitler's German Empire. Maybe, since Hitler was from Austria himself, he wanted to have the Vienna mint to have a mint mark close to the A. Who knows. According to the Coinage Act as amended in 1934, all German mints except Berlin would be closed at a later stage. Well, it never came to that. And nowadays Stuttgart is the mint location with the largest production share ... Christian
Interesting info on the mint order! I suppose the French followed a similar system since their mintmarks extended the length of the alphabet minus the J.
