Germany's Deutsche Mark lives on

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...922627,00.html

stonej wrote:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...922627,00.html

From the article:
| Around 15 billion D-marks -- half notes and half coins -- were in
| circulation by the end of 2005, said Uwe Deichert, a spokesman for
| the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank.

That "half and half" refers to the face value, by the way. If you look
at the number of items still in "circulation", the figures are a little
different:

184 million notes (total face value DM 7.5bn)
24.3 billion coins (total face value DM 7.2bn)

So far 93 percent of the notes have been exchanged into ¤ cash but only
50 percent of the coins. And it is quite likely indeed that many of
those coins will never be returned and melted :-)

Christian

Christian Feldhaus wrote:
stonej wrote:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,...922627,00.html

From the article:
| Around 15 billion D-marks -- half notes and half coins -- were in
| circulation by the end of 2005, said Uwe Deichert, a spokesman for
| the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank.

That "half and half" refers to the face value, by the way. If you look
at the number of items still in "circulation", the figures are a little
different:

184 million notes (total face value DM 7.5bn)
24.3 billion coins (total face value DM 7.2bn)

So far 93 percent of the notes have been exchanged into ¤ cash but only
50 percent of the coins. And it is quite likely indeed that many of
those coins will never be returned and melted :-)

Christian

The old 0.625 silver 5 marks that were coined 1951-1974 are highly
collectible. You won't (hardly) ever see those turned in. I have ten
to twenty nice ones that I don't intend to dispose of.

I have a baggie with maybe five or six marks of bronze, brass and clad
pfs and mks. As much as I would not mind to dispose of these, there is
no practical way to do it.

oly

oly wrote:

The old 0.625 silver 5 marks that were coined 1951-1974 are highly
collectible. You won't (hardly) ever see those turned in. I have ten
to twenty nice ones that I don't intend to dispose of.

Same here. Well, mine are in my collection :-) and I did change the
doubles that I had into euro cash.

I have a baggie with maybe five or six marks of bronze, brass and clad
pfs and mks. As much as I would not mind to dispose of these, there is
no practical way to do it.

Sure, but that applies to all the coins we take home from other
countries. (Unless we know that we will go there again soon, that is.)
In case of the marks, there is the extra step of going to a Bundesbank
branch office and getting euro cash for it, but basically it's the same
problem ...

Christian