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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;FredJB, post: 2071052, member: 73005&quot;]So far no one has mentioned my favorite coin types so I will post a short article of mine written a few years ago:</p><p>The 20 Heller Coins of German East Africa by F.J. Borgmann</p><p>The coinage of German East Africa has always held my interest and the 20 heller coins of 1916 are at the top of my list. The reason for this is that the coins were minted and issued by the German colonial government and military as they were successfully fighting a guerilla war against overwhelming allied forces. The coins were struck in brass and copper. The brass was from artillery shell casings and the copper from pipes mostly salvaged from the SMS Koenigsberg, a German cruiser that was trapped in the Rufiji Delta and damaged by British gun fire. The ship was scuttled by the Germans to prevent it’s capture after the big guns and ammunition were salvaged for use as land based artillery. The first coins struck were the 5 heller KM-14 and the 20 heller KM-15a coins in brass. When the brass ran out the 20 heller production continued in copper. Based on total mintages 1,307,760 coins were minted in brass and only 325,940 in copper. That makes the copper version about four times scarcer than the brass. Both metal versions were struck with the same dies. The obverse dies exist in two versions; large crown and small crown which are listed in the SCWC as obverse type A and obverse type B. The reverses exist in three types and are listed in SCWC as; reverse type A curled tip on second L in heller. Reverse type B pointed tips on both L’s in heller. Reverse C curled tips on both L’s in heller. While this covers all the bases I think the listing order is very incorrect. The first dies were modeled on the pre-war 5 and 10 heller coins which had the fancy curled tips on both of the L’s in the word heller and the 1916 dated brass 5 heller coin clearly shows this design on the first and only die design of that type. Therefore the 20 heller reverse type A should be first the version with curled tips on both L’s.</p><p>Reverse type B should be the version with a curled tip on only the right or second L in the word heller. Kurt Jaeger states in his book on German coins <u>Die</u> <u>deutschen Muenzen seit 1871 </u>that the curled tip “broke off” early in the production. That would mean that the hub or master die used to make the working dies which were used to strike the actual coins, was damaged causing the missing curled tip. That was not enough of a flaw under the circumstances to discontinue the use of the damaged dies. As a result the type A reverse with two curled tip L’s is rare and the type B reverse with only one curled tip L is common.</p><p>A second reverse hub was produced which had pointy tipped L’s and this produced what should be Reverse type C with pointy tips on both L’s.</p><p>Collectors of this series must deal with a few challenges. First the brass alloy had some variations causing some of the brass coins to be very dark and easily mistaken for the copper version. Secondly grading the coins can be problematic. Many of the planchets were crudely manufactured and have flaws. The dies were surprisingly good considering the circumstances but weak strikes are very common. The result is that one can find very worn looking coins that at first glance would be considered to be in poor condition while in reality they are in high grade condition. To grade these coins examine the rims and edges. If the rims are sharp and the edges are not worn smooth it is a high grade weak strike. A weak strike may not look too nice but technically it could still be extra fine or better. As a collector myself, I prefer the well struck coins in fine to very fine condition with complete design features to an AU-Unc. weak strike.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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