German States

As some of you guys know from my past posts, I really like German coins. I think they have really interesting designs, and Germany ranks 4th most coins in my collection. About 1/4th of them are WWII era that were brought back from the war by one of my relatives who served there, although it's unknown who as 4 served in WWII and we have no way to know who brought them back.

Until recently, however, I had not had any from the German States, all my German coins were from the unified period. (Or at least Empire or later!) Then, through more luck than anything else, I got my first four German States coinage in a week's time! I didn't know what one of them was when I bought it but I figured it out in a short amount of time!

I am also partly at least from German descent. (A lot of things make up me). The German side of my family is somewhat rare and obscure...there are only 10 family units in Germany today with the name, and it is guranteed that if you have that last name and live in America, you are related to me! We have been having a hard time finding out exactly where in Germany my family came from, but that will tie in with the last coin I post, also in my opinion the nicest...and certainly the oldest.

These first two are from Prussia. I bought these sight unseen from a BST on a different message board for under $5 each.
Prussia 1845 A 3 pfennige


Prussia 1870 A 1 pfennig


The next coin I pulled from a local dealer's assorted world coins bin. I didn't know what it was when I got it, but I knew I could not pass up a coin from 1820 at this price!

Hesse-Cassel 1820 1/24th of a thaler


And now, this last one. I saw it in the same local dealer's display case, and I knew I would be bringing it home if I could afford it! As it turns out, I could, even though it is now tied for the second most I've ever spent on a single coin at $25. I am not 100% sure about it's details yet...My reference material only goes back to 1850...but I believe it to be a 4 shilling issue from Hamburg. It just looked so good to me I fell in love the instant I saw it!
I played a joke on my brother, when I got home, and told him I had gotten a Hamburger. (we also stopped to bring home lunch). He knows I have not eaten a real hamburger since 2002, I just don't like them. But, the joke was on me, because he quickly told me that his latest round of research-done earlier that day, while I was out-is leading him to the strong possibility that my family was in actuality originally from Hamburg!
It is also the 9th oldest coin in my collection.

Hamburg 1765 4 shilling (?) I don't know what the O-H-K means at the center bottom of the obverse.



Thanks for reading and hopefully I will be able to add to this collection-and maybe the post-from time to time! I am sorry that all I can provide are scans and that some of them are crooked...I am working on that!

 

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Cool coins, I especially like your Hamburg 4 schilling one. I have a similar one, from 1725 4 schilling, not as nice as yours, and the reverse is quite poor, which is why I have only shown the obverse. And here is a 1774Mecklenburg-schwerin schilling. and a Hannover 1858-B groschen.

 

and my only Prussian 1 pfennig... a bit dinged up.... a 25cent bin find.


Ehh actually here is the reverse of the Hamburg 1725 4 schilling... its awful, but you can see what I believe to be the milled edge nicely, so it's worth showing.

 

Those are the initials of the mintmaster or mint director - in this case, Otto Heinrich Knorre. He had been a mintmaster in Schwerin and Stralsund before, and was then (1761-1805) mintmaster in Hamburg ...

Christian

 

Hamburg 4 Schilling
1765 OHK, KM# 186
3.05g, 0.5620 silver, 0.0551 ASW

VG-$15.00
F-$30.00
VF-$60.00
EF-$95.00

 

German states coinage, specially the minors are a very interesting area to collect, billy. Your examples are quite nice.

The designs are quite appealing, and there is a lot to chose from: 5 kingdoms, and over 40 duchies, principalities, cities-states, free cities (like Hamburg which you mention), and various other entities. I particularly like the divisionary or minor coinage of the napoleonic era, specially those issued by the smaller states. They are quite scarce, and the fun is to hunt them at shows where sometimes you can find them quite cheaply in spite of their scarcity.

 

Billyray

I was wondering if you could tell me if the 1725 Hamburg 4 schilling has the same weight, silver content and fineness as the 1765 4 schilling that you mentioned?

also, do you happen to know the silver content of the 1774 mecklenburg-schwerin schilling?

 

1725 IHL KM# 162.1 has no weight or finess listed in my Krause.

mecklenburg-schwerin schilling KM# 204
1774 Mintage 2,437,000
1.08g, 0.3750 silver, 0.0130 ASW

VG-$3.00
F-$6.00
VF-$10.00
EF-$25.00

 

Billyray ... 25-30 years ago I used to collect a great deal of 17-19th century foreign stuff, but have concentrated on Canada Victoria Large Cents for the last 20 years. I have an album with about 300 German Sates minors, mostly 18th century. If there are any specific city-states that you are looking for, or specialize in, PM me. I get down to Okla every Spring & Fall for fishing/hunting. I used to live in Tuttle, but now spend times with friends in Checotah.

 

Billy Kingsley, the OP is from New York. I'm from Oklahoma. While I wouldn't mind some German State coins, they're not in the budget at the moment.

 

Nice examples Bill

 

Thanks everyone for the comments and the additional info!

Eduard, what exactly are the differences in the 5 kingdoms, 40 duchies, etc...? I simply don't know!

I like minor coinage as well, more chance I will be able to actually aquire it some day

 

Billy, this is the list of the political entitities in Germany,which were in existence in the 18th and 19th century, and ALL of which issued their own coinage:


Kingdoms:

Bavaria (Bayern)
Hannover
Prussia (Preussen)
Saxony (Sachsen)
Wesphalia (Westfalen)
Wuerttemberg


Grand Duchies:

Baden
Hessen-Darmstadt
Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Oldenburg
Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach
Wuerzburg


Duchies:

Anhalt
Berg
Braunschweig
Lauenburg
Nassau
Sachsen-Altenburg
Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha
Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld
Sachsen-Hildburghausen
Schleswig-Holstein


Electorates:

Fuerstenberg
Hessen-Kassel
Hohenzollern
Isenburg
Leiningen
Lippe-Detmold
Lippe-Schaumburg
Reuss
Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Sonderhausen
Waldeck-Pyrmont
Wertheim


Dioceses:

Bamberg
Mainz
Muenster


Land Counties:

Hessen-Homburg
Wallmodem-Gimborn


Free Cities and Hanseatic Trade Cities:

Danzig
Frankfurt am Main
Hamburg
Rostock
Wismar



As you can see, quite a complex picture, but a very interesting numismatic area. The coinage of the smaller entities is generally scarce and very interesting. Keep you eyes out for them!

Prussia gobbled them all up in 1873 under Chancellor Bismark.

Regards,

Eduard

 

As an addendum: even after political unification in 1873, some of the major entities, for example Prussia, Bavaria, Wuerttemberg, Baden, and even some of the smaller ones (Hessen, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, Lippe, Schwarburg, etc) continued to issue their own coinage, but then only under the unified monetary standard of Marks. This lasted until 1914 or so.

 

Right, but those state specific coins were limited to the higher denominations. The pieces from 1 Pfennig to 1 Mark had the same designs in all states; the silver and gold coins from 2 to 20 Marks had one common side and one country/state specific side. That did legally not change until the end of the monarchy in 1918, but for obvious reasons hardly any new silver/gold coins were issued in WW1 ...

Christian

 

Wow, thank you so much! I still have so much to learn, and I am very happy about that. I'll now do some research and try to figure out what the difference in all them are!

 

Hey guys, I'm pretty new to World Coinage, mostly I collect U.S. coins. At a local coin shop's bid board last week, I saw this coin and I thought it was really cool and didn't seem to be too expensive so I went for it. From what I can tell, it's a 1727 Hamburg 2 Schilling and looks to have some nice detail for a coin so old. the coin is also fairly thin and has a reeded edge. I figured for $6 there wasn't too much downside risk:

 

illii, that's a great coin! Kind of cool that it says "Hamburger" also!

Here's one from Hannover that is one of my favorite coins.

 

Well, "Hamburger Current" simply means that this was a Kurantmünze (basically intrinsic value = face value) from Hamburg. By the way, the "IHL" initials refer to Johann Heinrich Löwe who was the Hamburg mintmaster between 1725 and 1759/60 ...

Christian

 

Thanks for the info Christian, good stuff!

brg, that Hannover has a great look, very nice!