posted
So, as we are cleaning out the carriage house (of our new house) we find this bizarre hidden hole, in which we find a 1935 50 Pfennigstück. It's made out of aluminum (supposedly, hindsight being 20/20 and all, you can tell by the use of aluminum that the Nazis are preparing for war.)
Does anyone know anything about coins?
Posts: 9871 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I don't know much about coins, but I have a few old ones (from my dad, who collected a few of them when he was a student in Europe). I have a couple aluminium italian coins somewhere. They were made sometime in the 30s also, but I always thought it was because of the Great Depression, and aluminium was cheaper or something.
As for German coins, I have a few of those, mostly from the 60s when there were two Germanies. It's kinda cool to have coins from a country that doesn't exist anymore (East Germany). And I have this 3-mark coin that dates back to 1908. It's this huge heavy thing.
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
digging, here is what one website said about it. (Google translation, anyway.)
quote: Already 1935 we this 50 Pfennig Pfennig from aluminum secretly in large quantities coined/shaped. It is already a clear indication for the war preparations of Germany at this time. It becomes only with beginning 2. World war spent. Thus 50 Pfennig Pfennig made of nickel, so important for the war armament, can be drawn in and melted. Contrary to 50 Pfennig - starting from 1940 the eagle on the back carries expenditures still no swastika.
Okay, maybe I don't understand that translation. Is that saying that it is aluminum, or that it is nickel? Now I'm confused.
posted
It isn't worth much, but it would definately be of value to a historian or a coin collector specializing in war time issues. I recently found a 1939 pfennig made of copper. As to the make up of your coin it is probably a copper/zinc/aluminium clad coin. Nickel was in short supply on the world market at the time and Germany didn't have enough hard currency to make it economical to import nickel and turn it into 5 pfennig coins. The nickel content was worth more than the coins marked value. A clad coin of lesser metals was cheap enough to be cost effective and even profitable. It cost the government 3 pfennigs to make, but its issue price was 2 pfennigs higher. Every one they made was a 2 pfennig profit on paper for the government.
All told, its probably worth around 50 cents in US dollars. Keep itt as part of your home's history, or give it to a historian or coin collector.
Posts: 110 | Registered: Jan 2001
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quote:Thus 50 Pfennig Pfennig made of nickel, so important for the war armament, can be drawn in and melted.
I think it's trying to say that the aluminum coins were minted ahead of time with the intention of substituting for the nickel coins when needed.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Without nickel, steels are hard but brittle. Nickel-alloying toughens the steel so it can withstand shock; which is a useful property for for items which contain explosions such as engines, rifles, cannons, etc. And items which take a beating such as armor, tank treads, vehicle suspension systems, etc.
Therebye, it can be inferred that aluminum coins were minted so that nickel coins could be taken out of circulation to be melted down to provide tough alloys for the military machine.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I often find that the best way to judge a value is to go to Ebay, search by COMPLETED auction, and see if you can find similar items that have already sold, and see what they went for.
posted
Oh, no. There isn't one on there to my knowledge. However, there are other pfennig notes, ranging above and below the one Kayla has, and I didn't see any of them more expensive than 20 bucks.
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