German occupation of Ghent - some of the oddest 20th century coins

I have always felt a particular interest and curiosity towards the 1915-1918 series of coins made during the German occupation of Ghent, Belgium. They are far from being the prettiest looking coins by any measure, but they more than make up for the lack of eye appeal with their charm and outright weirdness.

For starters, both their design and manufacture are among the most crude of any 20th century European issues that I can think of... even as far as occupation and necessity coinage goes. Just check out that "floating leg" on the rampant lions.

Secondly, all of the types have a shape reminiscent of a cabochon cut gemstone - rounded, convex rims on one side and flat, sharply cornered rims on the other. I assume this is the result of how the planchets were punched from sheet metal.

And now for the kicker - the 1915 50 centimes, 1 franken (not pictured) and 2 franken coins are made from three separate metals. This is what makes these such odd standouts: they have an iron core with a layer of brass on one side and a layer of copper on the other. To my knowledge this is the only instance outside of ultra modern non-circulating collectible types to employ a tri-metallic, bi-color method. The 1918 5 franken was made in similar fashion from iron, but only given a thin brass gild layer on both sides. My example below has lost virtually all traces of brass gilding.

There are also patterns, which are round in shape and made of gold gilded iron (also pretty weird).

If anyone has a 1915 1 franken on hand, please post

 

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Wow fantastic! Never knew something like this existed.

Maybe it's the pioneer for creating plated steel coins. Canadian mint exports multi ply steel planchets - maybe it's not so unique after all!

http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/learn/coin-production-1200012#.WkDWrjdLfIU

Thanks for sharing!

 

Thank you. I love learning about coins that were not only used, but desperately needed. One of my favorites are the pieces from the Spanish Civil War. Nice to have something else to look for. Are these listed in Krause under token issues ?

 

Yes, Krause lists them in the general 1901-2000 volume as token issues, right after the listings for Belgium proper

 

Great. I still use the old 1991 ANA 2-volume set for research since it has most token and specimen issues in it. I will check there, but I'm sure it would be there. Do you know of any other issues of non-German notgeld?

 

I'm aware of Austrian notgeld, though mostly notes rather than coins. I suppose those are very closely related to the German ones however. I'm sure there are other types which are semi-official necessity issues, though not necessarily referred to by the word "notgeld". The Ghent pieces for example were issued by the Council of Flanders, which was created by the Germans as a semi-autonomous body. I suppose that qualifies them for the title of notgeld as well.