Porcelain Coins

Here is one area of modern coinage I like to dabble in, porcelain notgeld coins. Notgeld coins in general were emergency coins produced during WW I and into the 1920s by local governments.

Like this (I dabble in these also)...







These porcelain coins were produced in the early 1920's, some to be sold as collectors items, but I believe some of these actually circulated. Many of them were made in Meissen, which is famous for its' porcelain. If you see a crossed swords symbol on a porcelain coins..it's made in Meissen. Like this...




or this...



or this...



Sometimes the coins are partially gilt, like this one..



You'll notice that most of these are red in color, but they also made white porcelain coins (and some other colors), but I don't have one yet.

Here is one that isn't mine, also note that it doesn't have the crossed swords "mint mark", so not a Meissen coin.

Meissen also produced porcelain tokens for fundraising purposes and to be used as medals. This is a fund rasing token..




Here are a few more of mine..

 

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Very nice, Chris!

 

I love what they tell about the times....

 

Really interesting...never knew coins were made from porcelain. I have a couple tokens made from plastic and fiber.

 

Very cool, and unusual.

 

Cool stuff, I like the porcelain pieces too. There were also commemorative medals similar to these made up into the 1960'-80's and maybe even later.

 

Interesting, I never knew any coins were made of porcelain. Did other countries produce porcelain coins? Or were they just minted as notgelds?

 

Even these days - not as notgeld though. Fifteen years ago for example a major flood affected many places along the Elbe river, including Meissen. The company then made this fundraiser medal. You see the silhouette of Meißen with the castle and cathedral and, in front, the Elbe river, with the word HELFT (an appeal to help) designed as a protective wall. While I do not collect porcelain pieces, that one I had to get ...

Christian

 

For the question were there were other porcelain countries making them .... I had some small, beautifully-made multicolor porcelain coins from SE Asia. I think that it was Siam for sure, but maybe others. Here's a link to some:
https://www.google.com/search?q=por...ukhbvUAhUs_IMKHZfiCWUQsAQIKQ&biw=1280&bih=649

 

Thanks to @chrisild and @Bill in Burl for the additional info.

 

Beautiful collection.

 

I have number of these "coins" (with a denomination) and medals from the 20's, including some in the original boxes. You can really see the the quality difference between the Meissen pieces and other manufacturers.

 

Really cool. I've seen porcelain medals (or medallic-type objects), but never "coins."

Do you have any examples of ones which circulated? Non-circulating stuff sold to collectors can be attractive, but it just doesn't have the same pull as stuff made to actually circulate.

 

With the exception of a few pieces in the teens that were used by the Meissen factory (from something a read years ago and can't vouch for its accuracy), all of these were made for collectors.

There is a 6 volume set of books by Scheuch listing all of the medals and "coins". I have it buried in a box somewhere, but can't seem to find it. My personal preference is to refer to any porcelain piece with a denomination as a "coin", while the remainder are medals. Not sure if this the standard nomenclature, but it works for me

The minting process is by dry pressing a clay/porcelain powder, similar to making simple ceramic parts used in industry. A few special examples are made by slip casting (gipsform). On some medal sets like the 1922 Gaildorf and 1923 Revensberg have a white clay and red clay piece pressed from the same die. The red pieces are smaller due to differences in shrinkage when it is fired. (generally, red has more iron and other glass formers that cause the piece to shrink more).

I've noticed that pieces not produced in Meissen, such as Hohr, Bitterfeld, Lengsfeld, and some Waldenburg, have a lot more pressing and firing flaws than the Meissen pieces.

Some of the medal and Saxony "coin" sets can still be found in the original boxes at reasonable prices

 

"Pees". I have a bunch of these but as I did some research it got complicated. Apparently there were many contemporary fakes and a lot of modern reproductions. Kind of frustrating trying to figure out if they are real. One authority has a list done years ago and the "real" ones are limited.

I posted some possible items I have here in the links below. I have quite a few others.

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/lets-see-your-exonumia.203005/page-311#post-2696209

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/lets-see-your-exonumia.203005/page-309#post-2691462

 

I have a reprint of Siamese Porcelain and Other Tokens by Ramsden that was originally published in 1911. I got it about 15 years ago. I have about 20 diff gaming tokens that I bought in the 90's that appear to be original (the wear, discolored porcelain, and small chips look original to me). One of these days, I'll get around to seeing if they're listed.

I only paid a few bucks each and I don't think they are worth a lot today, but it wouldn't surprise me if there are Chinese fakes and fantasy copies floating around. Most of mine are similar to yours on page 311 in the first post.

 

Thanks for that info. That document is is available as a PDF. Just downloaded and will put aside for when I have a little more time. I am still trying to get through my batch of Palembang Coins as identified in the Frank S. Robinson publication that I purchased last month.

 

SE Asia is not my thing. I ended up with the gaming tokens because they were porcelain. I really like the German porcelain from the 20's. There is a lot of history in those as well as the metal and paper notgeld. I have about 40 French metal Notgeld and a copy photocopy of Lamb's book, but I'm thinking of dumping them on ebay (someday). For some reason, they don't seem as interesting as the German pieces.

About 10 years ago, I put together a last minute exhibit on German Porcelain for a NENA show got some really good feedback. Maybe you could use the porcelain gambling tokens or the Palembang coins for an exhibit as well.

 

Ah that is a cool piece. I have a few laying around somewhere commemorating museums and historical figures. I did not know they are still being made, the latest ones I've has were dated in the 1980's. Thanks for that info