How Many of us While stationed in Germany Collected these coins?
Yes, how many of encountered the coins while stationed in Germany. Often thinking the Not Geld “ Not Money” later wondered what these coins were.
The actual term for the coins is NotGeld translation for this term is Emergency Money, yes emergency money, fancy that. During the The Great War, better known as the First World War Germany experienced shortages of circulating coinage.
There were several factors responsible for shortages in circulation of almost all denominations of coins, such as hoarding of precious metals known as hard currencies such as the silver Half and One Mark coins. Another demand on circulation coinage was Copper. With the outbreak of war Germany’s importing of the strategic metal stopped, and all of the metal was needed for the weapons industry.
With so many Cities across Germany finding themselves stressed for conducting basic commerce brought on by severe shortages of small change. Many City’s, Jurisdictions, Savings Banks, and Free States, turned to private industry for minting Emergency Coins, Notgeld.
In the early years of World War One many of the Emergency issues had Kriegs Geld on them, that represented the issuance of War Money. Kriegs Geld was soon changed by most issuing jurisdictions to Notgeld, which lasted throughout the rest of the war.
A new strain on general commerce was being seen throughout Germany after the war ended. With Germany‘s requirement of repatriation payments for causing the war. Faced with problems of how these payments were to be made, the new German government‘s answer was…just print more money.
Soon, the concept of simply printing new banknote for repayment of the war presented a problem, value. The value of the newly printed banknotes became worth less than the day before it was issued, thus, requiring additional money being printed. Soon the value of German banknotes became worthless, resulting in Hyperinflation.
With Hyperinflation came the issuance by nearly everyone issuing their own Notgeld. What was once the issuing of both small denomination coin and paper money, soon became an increasingly heavy demand for larger, and larger denominations to be issued. This resulted in very few issuing jurisdictions continuing Notgeld coinage issues. What few that did continue issuing Notgeld such as the issues of Hamburg, and Westphalia witnessed denominations into the Millions of Marks. Those millions of mark coins soon had even higher denominations being issued in the Billions of mark denominations being struck.
Today these coins are sought out by collectors worldwide, yet most of those who collect them haven’t a clue as to just what they have. The purpose of this Reddit post is to welcome everyone to join r/GermanNotgeldCoins and share and learn about these little coins we refer to as Notgeld Coins. The information shared will cover the identification and different denominations, and types issued. Also when subtypes exist, identifying features that distinguish these coins will also be explained.
So, if you’re interested in learning about German Notgeld Coins, I welcome you to join r/GermanNotgeldCoins