N#21790 For those who don't know: This is a 1922 100 Mark Notgeld piece from the town of Röthenbach a.d. Pegnitz near the City of Nürnberg in Bavaria, Germany (Actually not too far away from my hometown, and i've been to Röthenbach a few times :)) It is made from compressed coal dust, which sounds really weird… because it is xD It is the smallest of a set of 3 coins, 100, 500 and 1000 Mark, with the 1000 mark being a whopping 72mm in diameter! And with only 2500 made, it is quite rare.
I was very excited when i saw it for sale as it was one of my longtime wishlist items! I think i overpayed a bit with 140€ +5€ shipping but it was worth it for me, especially considering how rarely i could find them being sold in the first place. So this time i just took the chance and got it.
Few interesting things i've noticed or want to share: - It's really thick. I only realised that when i first held it, even though it states 5mm on the Numista page. I must've just not thought about it before. - It's very light, which makes sense, considering it'S material. I don't have a good scale at home sadly but it feels even lighter than comparable porcelain coins. - The phrase on the back “ALLEN GEWALTEN ZUM TRUTZ SICH ERHALTEN” is from Goethe and is a very poetic way of saying “to stand against whatever gets thrown at you” (which makes sense considering what germany was like during 1922) - It glitters! Yeah it does. The surface is definetly not perfectly flat and you can sorta see it on the photos as well. - They had a hand carved serial number. Mine is 1041. - It was made by Lauer, which some of you who collect old tokens are likely familiar with from a bunch of stuff like tiny play money and old counter tokens.
Overall very interesting coins and it makes me very happy to finally own one!
If people burned the hyperinflation paper money to keep their homes warm,.. I wonder how much warmth burning a bucket of these would provide? I wonder if that was the reasoning for making them out of coal, even if they didn't make many of them in the end.
With the French transferring most of the coal westward the paper ones were way more abundant and easier to light. Also way cheaper then actual fire wood or coal.
Due to the coal shortage for heating the waiting room, patients are asked to bring a briquette with them on each visit.
Interesting item. Really cool. Thankyou for sharing. Most interesting German item in my collection is this 1916 medal. I have a 1920's inflation medal too. Notgeld coinage is really interesting.
A very cool thing! I hope it will stay cool too….:) Did this coin ever really circulate?
I don't believe so, its a medal.
Really? It's listed as a Emergency coinage - Official necessity coin. Why even make it if it wasn't supposed to circulate?
Yes, no medal, that is clear, intended to circulated that is clear too. BUT did they actually circulate, that I would really like to know….
The question if and how certain money circulated that time is a bit weird to answer as there were so many different things circulating at the same time. The official government notes kept going higher and higher in denomination and City Notgeld was sort of split, having 5-10-20/25-50 Pfennig coins or low denomination banknotes alongside super high denominations going into the millions and billions. And then you still had neighboring places using their money over here AND state and regional spanning Notgeld like Bavarian or Württemberg Notes.
So which of these did actually circulate and got used? All of it, at the same time…
So it's hard to say how these 100-500-1000 mark Coins were used. The locals of this small place probably agreed on what they were worth and did actually use them. Keep in mind that Röthenbach even today has only like 12k people, so back then it woul've been a lot less. So i personally think they DID properly circulate, but only in their small community… confusingly alongside State, Government and other citys like Nürnbergs notgeld as well.
A very cool thing! I hope it will stay cool too….:) Did this coin ever really circulate?
I don't believe so, its a medal.
Really? It's listed as a Emergency coinage - Official necessity coin. Why even make it if it wasn't supposed to circulate?
Yes, no medal, that is clear, intended to circulated that is clear too. BUT did they actually circulate, that I would really like to know….
The question if and how certain money circulated that time is a bit weird to answer as there were so many different things circulating at the same time. The official government notes kept going higher and higher in denomination and City Notgeld was sort of split, having 5-10-20/25-50 Pfennig coins or low denomination banknotes alongside super high denominations going into the millions and billions. And then you still had neighboring places using their money over here AND state and regional spanning Notgeld like Bavarian or Württemberg Notes.
So which of these did actually circulate and got used? All of it, at the same time…
So it's hard to say how these 100-500-1000 mark Coins were used. The locals of this small place probably agreed on what they were worth and did actually use them. Keep in mind that Röthenbach even today has only like 12k people, so back then it woul've been a lot less. So i personally think they DID properly circulate, but only in their small community… confusingly alongside State, Government and other citys like Nürnbergs notgeld as well.
Best answer . I think some of the notgeld notes are found in fantastic conditions still because they were that worthless by time of issue that many weren't used but they did circulate as you say and were issued for circulation within the local areas,cities,towns and states they were produced for hence making them official circulating issues banknotes and coins. We can't really compare todays standards with numismatics and currency with Germany back then. Money became so worthless that people went back to trading goods between themselves also. Most recent example in Europe to compare it too would be the hyperinflation in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
It was not that they were worthless in a short time due to inflation, they never had any worth to begin with. All these fancy colorful bills that come in a series are only collector pieces they are called ‘Serienscheine’.
They had no backing from anything (other communal notgeld was backed by industry, land etc), were sold at over face for some cause or another or simply to collectors and many even have it written on them that they are not money (can't find one right now but I have seen a couple in the catalog).
So if you see a very colorfull very artsy note that comes with many siblings, has no serial/control number and is found only in UNC/AU (the only handling damage is from improper storage and time) it is very likely to not be real money.
So if you see a very colorfull very artsy note that comes with many siblings, has no serial/control number and is found only in UNC/AU (the only handling damage is from improper storage and time) it is very likely to not be real money.
Interesting input !
And if there are obvious traces of circulation, do you think that necessarily implies that they actually circulated ?
