The "Handelsblatt", a German economy daily, just had an article about a lesser known jubilee: Exactly ten years ago, the five mints in Germany stopped minting Deutsche Mark (and Pfennig) coins.

http://www.handelsblatt.com/news/Journal/V...der-d-mark.html

The production did not come to an abrupt halt, but 1996 is the last year that can be found on regular DM circulation coins. Later issues (dated 1997-2001) were produced for mint sets - and thus collectors - only.

The fairly long article also lists the number of coins minted in (West, then united) Germany until 1996: A total of 53.7 billion pieces - and the 1 pfennig coin had the biggest share (17.9 billion) of that output.

These coins, and the DM notes, will keep their face value "forever". Once the pieces have been decoined, though, they are worth the scrap metal value only. Which is not that bad these days - in late October, for example, fifty tons (50,000 kg) brought €516,000 at an auction.

Christian

Wow, has it been a decade already?

The latest DM I've seen was a '94 1DM

Well, what would "it" be? Yes, it has been ten years since the last regular DM coins were made. The supply was apparently sufficient to cover the next few years. The DM, as a currency, "lasted" until December 1998. On 1-Jan-99 it was replaced by the euro, but we continued to use the DM cash for three more years.

In early 2002 the mark, franc, gulden, etc. cash was taken out of circulation and replaced by the euro cash. (In fact, somewhere I read that the Portuguese mint (and maybe others too) will issue a "5 years euro cash" coin next year ...) So, no reason to feel old.

Christian