A native-French-speaking Swiss friend of mine, who has been living and working in England for the past few years, has landed a job in Munich, Germany. We were chatting on WhatsApp today, and the subject of pre-euro money came up.
I visited continental Europe three times as a child, in the summers of 1974-76, and later as an adult. On those early trips I crossed many borders and exchanged dollars into plenty of different currencies--French and Swiss francs, Dutch guilders, Austrian schillings, Italian lire, British pounds, German marks. I completely understand the advantages of the euro; what too many people don't consider is what was lost when those independent countries adopted the euro.
This, however, isn't a post about economics or nostalgia, it's a post about currency itself. While I don't have any of the paper Marks, shillings, etc., that I used as a child, I do have several examples of older German currency. In other posts I've shown some of the German inflationary currency of 1922-23 that I have, in this one I thought I'd just share some of the other German notes I have. I took these pictures of the notes next to an American $2 bill for size comparisons, and sent them to my friend just so he can get a flavor of German culture in the past:
click to enlarge
Don't you love the battleships on the reverse of the 100 Mark note? And how about the size of those notes?
I have other inflationary notes, but these show the start.
This 1,000 Mark note was counter-stamped one billion Marks.
Note the different eagle-with-swastika logos on these two Nazi-era notes. And how about that blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan boy on the 5 Reichsmark note? Contrast that with Albrecht Dürer on the 20 Reichsmark note.
This 5 Mark note is from East Germany.
4 comments:
Really cool to have all those different notes! I have stamps showing the inflation instead, with ludicrous numbers of marks overprinted on them.
How did they fit all those zeroes on a stamp?!
They didn't! The amounts are spelled out: first you get numbers like 800 Tausend, then 2 Millionen, and finally 5 Milliarden.
I remembering visiting East Berlin in the late 80s. We were advised to buy East German Marks from a West German bank.
The exchange rate at the bank was 10 to 1.
The exchange rate at the border, for Marks was 1 to 1.
I couldn't spend the money I brought, probably still have some in the house, somewhere.
(Had dinner for 4, prepared tableside, for 43 dollars, equivalent.)
Insane times.
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