World War II Era Coins

I Want to know some background on this type of coin and what the possible worth is
my favorite feature of this coin is the small crest engraved in the edge of the coin

any help is much appreciated thanks

 

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You should only hold your coins by the edges.

 

What you have there is a 1935 5 Reichsmark coin from Nazi Germany. The portrait on the back is of Paul von Hindenburg, who was president of Germany until 1934 (Adolf Hitler took over afterwards). The coin is 90% silver, and has 0.4016 ASW (so melt value alone at the current rate is a very rough $9-10). The design of the eagle on the front was actually changed a year or 2 afterwards, I think in 1936 or 1937 the Nazis introduced the eagle with its wings spread holding a wreath with a swastika.

The coin gets a few dollars above melt for its historical value and significance though. I'd say that coin is worth between $10-$18 if you're looking to buy or sell on ebay.

 

thanks for the info

 

Oh, and the edge of the coin has an inscription, which you noticed. A rough translation is "Public good goes before self interest."

 

that should be our governments motto instead of i before u

 

It's a good motto. Except the Germans took it to an extreme and decided the murder of people was good for the state. Do you collect coins of this era, or is this just a random one you came across? If you look back at some past threads, sometimes people have issues with collectors of Nazi coins because of the government they represented. I actually have a small collection of Nazi banknotes and coins, which I keep because of the history behind them. I'm Jewish, actually, and found that these coins have an important story behind them and shouldn't be avoided.

 

i have a pretty big coin collection i got them all around mid 08 when my family found an old suitcase my grandfather gave us and it was filled with indianhead pennies steel pennies silver quarters ect and they told me i could have all the foreign coins and this one was in there i also found a little wheat reichspfennig i'll put up some pictures in a minute i love the history behind these coins its pretty cool

 

I have quite a few of these 3rd Reich coins and I love them. I don't see why there's such a controversy over them. It's not like the coins were involved with WWII. They were just currency existing during that era. It's not their fault that their government wanted to rule the world.

Cool coin, though, bladecatcher.

 

i would love to see what these coins went thru to get where they are now

 

Nice 1 Rpf, still has the old Weimar design on it (before the Nazis came to power, Weimar was the republic name of Germany after 1919. That wheat design was the symbol they featured on the currency issued in the 1920s and early 1930s). Here are the "updated" 5 RM and 1 Rpf of 1937:

 

excellent condition

 

Pretty much the same here, but mine starts with WWI, even a bit before that, in the late 1890s.

Weimar wheat design on 1pf:



And the bird was more impressive back then (1921 10pf):

 

Nice additions there, Taxidermist. You're right, the older designs are much nicer, much more intricate :thumb:

 

When I buy bulk lots of coins and find Nazi coins, I throw them in the garbage.

 

this is exactly the kind of thinking that got obama in office
i'm not saying that the nazis weren't monsters what i'm trying to say is the past is the past
there isn't a thing we can do about what happened but what we can do is we can remember the lesson that war taught us


Good that will make our coins worth more

 

bladecatcher, it's better to let people's opinions be, especially on thistopic. There's nothing you can say to change their mind, and there's nothing that they can add to a discussion of "WWII coins." The only thing that will happen if people continue arguing is the thread gets closed and locked (it's happened soooo many times before...). Not worth it.

 

Although i definitely agree about not arguing on this topic, i am curious why mmarotta throws those coins into garbage. Should anything with swastika be thrown? Banknotes, old documents, publications? Or just coins?

 

good question but in my opinion you shouldnt throw them donate them to your local museum at least you wont get any money and you wont have them anymore

 

Alot of the smaller denomination coins of that time were made out of zinc, and turned a less than pleasant coloration and corroded easily after a while if not kept well, these lower denomination zinc coins are also fairly common and not worth too much... maybe thats why he throws them away....

Back to the subject at hand.... I always found them interesting pieces of history myself. Sadly most the zinc ones I find in the coin shops .20cent bin are corroded. I got this silver 5 mark for less than melt value at the coin shop, I couldnt pass that one up... nice edge lettering and design as well.

I still prefer the design of the earlier eagles, and the style of the coins of the German Empire. But they are all very interesting, and cover such an interesting period of history, from the first World War through the second.
What I would like to get is one of the nazi ones that were altered after the war, having the swastika underneath the eagle removed.