Foreign Doubled Dies

[russellhome]

1923 D 200 Mark German Weimar Republic

Another eBay find...

A 1923 D 200 Mark German (Weimar Republic) Doubled Die

I'm not even sure if this is technically a coin. It was minted during the hyper inflation that occurred in Germany from 1921 to 1923 and was pretty much worthless the day it was minted. It is the size of a quarter, as thin as a dime, and made out of aluminum. It is of worse quality than a 'Chuck-E-Cheese' token. There may be a million of these floating around, but it was a great doubled die and I just had to add it to my foreign DV collection.



The left side has the least amount of spread and it gets stronger moving clock-wise around the coin.



The spread is heavier at 12:00 o'clock. Note the split in the bird beak.



The spread on the right is just plain wild. To add to the confusion, it appears to have mechanical/strike doubling in addition to being a true hub doubled die.



The bottom is back to showing less of a spread. Note the notch in the star and the the doubled claw tips.



If you think our current economic times are bad -- just look back in history to see what happens when a country decides to pay off its debt by simply printing more money. By the fall of 1923, the German Mark was pretty much worthless. It would take several 200 Mark coins just to buy a postage stamp. Notes were issued in excess of a billion marks and local cities started printing their own local money in an attempt to control the chaos. It was during this time that the seeds of fascism began to take root.



I wonder what 1,001,100,201.25 Marks could buy in 1923. Probably not much.

[wavysteps]

Great looking doubled die Ken. I imagine that a lot of these were lost or melted down for use in other purposes since it was not worth anything.

BJ Neff

[Seeindubl]

Here's a 1990 2 Pfennig Doubled Die, I stopped at my bank to purchase some rolls of cents hoping to get some Lincoln's out of the rolls (live in Canada) and this was in one of them.

[russellhome]

That is a very nice doubled die. I'll have to keep my eye out for that one. Found in a Canadian cent roll! What are the chances of that happening?

[livingdinasaur]

Ken, that 2 franc appears to be a hub foubling. RPD, as well. The E, and D both show this. BTW that was the year my wife was born, in June.
Dick

[russellhome]

1988 F (Stuttgart) German 2 Mark Doubled Die

An ugly coin (IMO) but a very nice doubled die! Minted in Stuttgart, Germany. The 2 Mark coin is larger than a U.S. quarter - and smaller than a half dollar.

[BIM Mania]

VERY NICE!!!

[f6tornado]

I agree, not pleasant in the way of design on the obverse. Nice doubled die.

[wavysteps]

Very nice Ken.

BJ Neff

[russellhome]

Thanks everyone. It is a nice addition to my ever-growing foreign coin DV collection.

I do have a question that I have been unable to find an answer for on the web. I know that the Euro was introduced in 1999 and became the official currency of the initial "union" countries in 2002. I also found out that there is a fixed and indefinite exchange rate for cashing in marks to euros. But what I don't know and want to find out is... what did the German government do with the old coinage once it was exchanged and pulled from circulation?

I would guess that most were destroyed (recycled metal) but I really have no idea. This 1988 coin likely had no collector value at the time of the exchange -- and it certainly wouldn't win any beauty contests. So I wonder how many of the original mintage might have survived? I imagine it will be much like Morgan dollar stated mintages not accounting for those melted for silver value. Due to massive numbers being melted down, only time will tell how 'rare' some dates and mints truly are.

[Maxorin]

Here`s a 1 franc coin from Belgium, 1962, with some nice
doubling on the date, stars and letters at the bottom.