WWI German Iron Token

Just bought this outstanding example of a relatively rare WWI iron Token. It is in pretty good shape and the portrait is just fantastic and unique. Just thought I would share. I collect for portraits and this is a crown jewel of portraits IMO.



1918 10 STADT DUREN IRON COIN TOKEN - GERMANY

Obverse depicts a German Trenchman with the letters 'SD' to the left

Coin Size 24mm

WORLD WAR I 'NOTGELD PERIOD'

 

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Drusus,this is actually a very common 10 Pfennig Notgeld token from Duren.The inscription,'STADT DUREN' literally means,'City of Duren'.It is an interesting piece,especially if you are collecting Notgeld.

Aidan.

 

Yes, I should clarify that I say 'relatively rare' as I do not see these come up for sale often and of the ones I see, less have the SD in the field and even less are in such good condition.
In WWI germany at the time money was being horded thus creating a lack of currency in circulation so towns and cities minted thier own local money to be used just in that city or town. There were probably thousands of different types of bills and hundreds of different types of tokens minted. It is Notgeld or 'emergency money'...some of the bills and tokens from this time have great designs, kind of like the earlier Conder Tokens in britian. This one is no exception.

This coin was minted in Iron as other metals were probably in short supply and it was minted for the city or duren...stadt meaning city. This Token was probably only used in duren and from what I have read even these were probably horded as well...
It is, IMO, a sterling example of one of the local tokens, it is the best example of this particular one I have seen come to auction and although it was worth almost nothing, this one ended up being the target of a bidding war and sold for well over what it is probably worth but worth is relative








^^ few examples of the bills

 

here is a notgeld bill with the same portrait on it

 

Really cool stuff Drusus!

 

Wow. Interesting stuff.

 

I might be shifting my focus a bit to include more of these little gems if I can find them at affordable prices. Problem is they are often listed as common but they end up selling in auction very high and I even saw several online dealers charging 25+ for the more common variety of this coin with rust (in poor condition) while the book price seem to be 4-5 dollars . Makes me wonder out of the half a million of these specific iron coins that they minted, how many are just worn rusty and ugly because certainly I havent seen a single one sell for even close to the low book values.

 

Drusus,there are Notgeld catalogues around,but most of them are in the German language only.You could try looking at www.amazon.com or at www.krausebooks.com .You may find something there.

Aidan.

 

Drusus,
My coin dealer has literally hundreds of these notgeld bills that he bought from a collector,at least I think he still has them.If there's a particular one you would really like to have,give me a full description and I can put you in touch with him.He's a really good guy and a friend.

 

The german notgeld coinage does make an interesting collectable. It can be found in metal, porcelin, and in some other exaotic materials including coal! (Powdered, mixed with a binding agent and then "struck".)

I collect the metal issues as cataloged by the 1966 Municipal issues book by Robert Lamb. (I also have the 1970 Upton book, an the 1984 Funk, and the Menzel (sp) books) It is possible to build a fairly large collection of these coins for around $5 apiece, but some of them get pretty salty. It is very difficult some times to know what a valid price is though. Menzel prices would be the most accurate, but even those are years old and in German marks. The closest thing there is to an on-line collectors group for them is a sub-group of the One per country collectors group in Yahoo groups. While some of them limit themselves to just one coin per city others collect the whole group.

 

Mikjoo - to be honest though I love the bills, I dont realy collect them, I might if I saw one I just loved...I am looking to buy more of the coins...if he has any of the coins, could you let me know? Is there a way I could e-mail him? maybe get a run down of what bills he has? I have been looking through bills lately and there are some real interesting ones, although I dont collect them I would possibly buy a few.

Condor - I saw one of those Porcelain coins set in metal for sale...that was a trip...you know its an emergency when you are making coins out of Porcelain, clay and coal...in fact I have read more about this one and it is in iron...most likely because Duren was an Iron mining town...seems they just used what they could get thier hands on.

Aidan - Thanks for the links...

 

The latter is certainly true, hehe. But I think that in those days iron and steel did not play a major role in Düren any more. The Hoesch steel company actually came from Düren but had moved to Dortmund (Ruhr Area) in the late 19c. Another important industry in Düren was ... paper.

Christian

 

thats good to know! A write up on a website I found dealing with Duren and these coins said that it had an iron mine that was active at the time which was where they got the metal to mint these...guess the guy was wrong...goes to show...dont always believe what you read on the internet

 

Nah, what he wrote may well be true; there may of course have been some local iron sources left, which were then used to make those Notgeld pieces. By the way, here are some other Düren pieces:
http://www.jetons-monnaie.net/a/aduren.html

Christian

 

I have seen those while researching...I was told there was one with a pilot on it...I have searched for it but cant find it...do you possibly know where to find a pic of it?

1/2 Mark token, the obv. is with head of an pilot. (Funck# 105.12, value 10 DM)

 

Sorry, no ... it is listed as item # A-238 on this page http://www.joelscoins.com/notgeld/notgeldger1.htm too, but without a picture. Then again, I don't have any of the notgeld catalogs so cannot look the piece up.

Christian

 

Actually the metal pieces are mainly the "emergency" coinage. The oddball things like the porcelain, coal and clay issues, along with most of the paper issues, were actually produced to be sold to collectors as a way to raise money. They weren't really intended to circulate like the metal ones were.

 

Wow thats a interesting piece

 

MikJo I would love his details as I have a small but growing collection of Notgeld notes I did have one of the Iron coins but some nice person walked with it a few years ago Drusus that is a real gem :thumb:

De Orc :bow:

 

Funk 105.11 and 105.12

Want to take a look at the coins? Here we go!



All prices in DM (the good old, deceased Deutsch Mark :-( )

(C) Gietl Verlag, Walter Funk, Die Notmuenzen d. dtsch Staedte, Gemeinden, Kreise, Laender etc., Vol 1; published 2000