Found a small leather pouch left behind in Ex-B's dresser. It contained a bunch of old coins, some US, but most are from other countries. The oldest coin is an 1865 US Indian head (Liberty) penny; the most recent, from 1970s Germany.
Coins tell a great deal of history about their countries of origin. For instance, one of the German coins, a 500 mark dated 1923, is made of aluminum and reminds me of pre-1970s New Orleans Mardi Gras coins we used to catch when I was a kid. These were minted during the recession years following the end of WWI. I recall Ex-B said he was told that was a time when people carried their money in wheel barrows to go shopping. Can you imagine? (Sure hope the current world's economies don't reach that point!)
By 1936-1939, the German economy had improved to the point that the von Hindenburg 5 Reichs mark (shown below), a hefty german silver piece (silver+nickel, I believe), indicated a much wealthier nation. A 1969 2 Deutsche mark, struck in celebration of the Bundes Republik Deutschland's 20th anniversary, is headed back toward lighter weight, and has a yellowish cast to the metal. It's about half the weight of the Reichs mark.
The Danish 5 kroner is the largest coin (3.5 cm), though not the heaviest (5 mark has that distinction) and Iceland's 1 eyrir (1.6 cm) is the smallest, and still heavier than the 1923 mark.
The 1924 50 centimes coin is from French Morocco, made of copper and brass, it looks like. Lots of 'stuff' on the coin, very busy.
I was thinking I might sell the coins, but none has any value to speak of, plus I like them too much to sell them. Don't get me wrong, I would part with them if the value was high enough to outweigh sentimentality.
Some are more worn than others, with some older ones in better condition than more recent coins. These all are works of art, including the Nazi era coins. Too bad I still associate the atrocities of Hitler's regime with anything bearing the swastika. On second thought, that's actually a good thing.
There are more coins than I could load with this post. Among my favorites are the Edward and the George coins from the Empire. One can see the resemblence of the three kings to each other. Handsome men, all.
3 comments:
I always liked finding Mexican pesos on the street, not terribly uncommon presumably because so many kids I went to school with had family living there. It was less common than finding Canadian coins, of course, Windsor being right across the river.
Something about coins that feels both more real than paper money, but also more like a really good game piece, a toy.
There was a period during the Weimar Republic where inflation was at a 20% per day...and it did take a wheelbarrow load of marks to buy a loaf of bread. All giving rise to Hitler's takeover.
Handsome? Well I never thought so regarding the guy on the last coin and I lived through the majority of his reign. All I do know is he went and died and that meant his daughter got crowned queen and I had booked a holiday (on a houseboat moored in the the amusingly named Norfolk Broads) and for a time it looked as though I might have to cancel because all reporters would be needed to cover the coronation. Luckily the editor relented, I got my holiday and the coronation passed without my being aware of it other than the fact that my mum wrote a poem about the coronation, came second in the whole of the country, was awarded £25-worth of books of which I got to chose a quid's worth (title...) Nah, you don't want to know that..
Handsome? Well that same thin-faced guy did have the luck, sixty years later, to get played by Colin Firth in a movie.
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