German War tokens.

Fulda. 10 pfennig 1917. Unusual shape.

 

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Eisleben.
10 pfennig 1917 & 1918.

 

Heidelberg.
50 pfennig 1917.

 

That is all.

 

Some nice pieces you got there. Well, the difference between war tokens and post-war notgeld is not really a sharp dividing line, rather some kind of transition: There was just not enough small change for the local money supply.

It is also interesting (for me) to see how many of these places do not "exist" any more, either because the town is now part of another city (Ohligs -> Solingen, NW; Elberfeld -> Wuppertal, NW), because the spelling has changed (Coblenz -> Koblenz, RP) or because the city is in a different country now (Breslau -> Wrocław in Poland). The nice thing about war tokens and especially notgeld (metal or paper) is that the issues do not really have to be "politically correct". So quite a few of them have local and even amusing designs ...

(Edit: The Breslau 10 Pf piece originally served a different purpose: "Wertmarke der Straßenbahn = Tram/trolley token; "Städt. Straßenbahn" = Municipal Tram. But of course it may have been used as notgeld too.)

Christian

 

You right, Mr. Christian. German war tokens are very strange sometimes... Especially, tokens of Wuerttemberg (with a very large size).

 

Talk about inflation!!

Very nice examples, indeed :thumb:

Seeing all of your specimens, I'm thinking about visiting some dealers this weekend

 

Nice collection siberian man

 

Thanks for the post.

 

Nice coins but wrong world war!

 

From the context (all the pieces he shows are dated) it should be obvious that the second "I" was a typo. Some of these were actually minted during WW1; the others were all issued afterwards ...

Christian

 

Westphalia.
1 mark 1921, aluminium.

 

Hamburg.
1/100 & 1/10 of mark 1923, aluminium.

 

You sure have an attractive collection. Strictly speaking, the Hamburg coins are not dated - "Hamburgische Bank von 1923 AG" was the name of the issuing bank. But that bank was established in October '23 by various banks and businesses in order to find a way out of the hyperinflation. They pretty much did, at a local/regional level, what was achieved by the Rentenmark at a national level a little later.

So it is actually correct to assume that these were minted in late 1923. Also, "Marke" is the German word for token or stamp. Not quite sure what the English word for "Verrechnungs-Marke" is, but accounting token should come close.

As for the Westphalian pieces, those were (despite the word "Notgeld") never used as means of payment. They were issued and sold as fundraisers. Should not keep anybody from collecting them, of course. I have a few myself ...

Christian

 

Is there literature or web resource on these tokens?

Really beautiful coins (except the one from Westphalia with the ugly dude on the obverse! LOL!)

 

Well, that dude was probably not a beauty but certainly an influential Prussian statesman. (In his times, Westphalia was a Prussian province.) The other person depicted on those Westphalian pieces is the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff:


(Image: MA Shop Witte)

Christian

 

Very interesting link- thank you Christian

very important fellow- you would think the engraver could have made a more flattering portrait but maybe back in the day he was a hot commodity. The coin with Annette is fabulous too- i have some German Imperial, Weimar, and German States coins but have never seen these tokens- great stuff!
regards, -Robert

 

Siberian Man: thank you! You've done some of the best posts I've seen here. Very educational!

 

Thank you very much.

 

I love everyone of those, Germany has the distinction of producing my favorite coin of all time