GERMANY 1 mark 1875 D

Description

The coinage arrangement in the German Empire was that the minor coinage up to the 1 mark was issued for the Empire as a whole, while larger silver and gold were issued in the names of the individual states.

The German states, excluding Austria, joined together in a federal union while they were still fighting the Franco-Prussian War. Prussia was the dominant member. It became an industrial giant, with an advanced social welfare system. It also seized colonies in Africa and the Pacific islands. Then it got itself shattered by World War I.

The political arrangements that resulted in the nations of modern Europe began to emerge out of anarchy starting in the 7th century AD or so. Europe, for our purposes stretches from Greenland to somewhere in Russia. Collectors of Europe would likely include Russia. Collectors of Asia, even though about 2/3 of Russia is in Asia, probably not.

By “Modern World Coins” we mean here, generally, the round, flat, shiny metal objects that people have used for money and still do. “Modern,” though, varies by location. There was some other way they were doing their economies, and then they switched over to “modern coins,” then they went toward paper money, now we’re all going toward digital, a future in which kids look at a coin and say “What’s that?” We’ll say: “We used to use those to buy things.” Kids will ask “How?” The main catalog reference is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, to which the KM numbers refer.