NI Bulletin NI Bulletin A Publication of Numismatics International Inc. Volume 42 No. 5 May 2007 $2.00 BOARD OF GOVERNORS Chairman & Past-President: Howard L. Ford e-mail: [email protected] Phone: 940-243-5523 President: Michael Jones Vice President: James Terry Recording Secretary: Christopher Carson Corresponding Secretary: Gordon Robinson e-mail: [email protected] Treasurer: Don Douglas At-Large Directors: Pat Holladay, Stewart Huckaby All past Presidents are members of the Board of Governors. APPOINTED STAFF Curator, NI REFERENCE COLLECTION Librarian, NI LIBRARY Philip L. Lawrence David Gracey PO Box 260248 Editor Emeritus, NI BULLETIN Plano, TX 75026-0248 Marvin L. Fraley [email protected] Editor, NI BULLETIN Auction Manager, NI MAIL BID SALES Herman Blanton Carl Young P.O. Box 247 P.O. Box 810521 Mount Vernon, OH 43050 Dallas, TX 75381-0521 e-mail: [email protected] Membership Chairman Chairman, NI PUBLICATIONS Ross Schraeder John E. Vandigriff P.O. Box 1481 Moderator, NI EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS Lewisville, TX 75067 Howard A. Daniel III e-mail: [email protected] P.O. Box 989 Deltaville, VA 23043-0989 e-mail: [email protected] Index Editor, NI BULLETIN fax: 413-826-3087 Christopher D. Carson Book Orders: Elmore Scott: [email protected] Archivist Ross Schraeder NUMISMATICS INTERNATIONAL e-mail: [email protected] Internet: http://www.numis.org Correspondence should be directed to those persons and addresses above for departments indicated. All other correspondence should be mailed direct to NUMISMATICS INTERNATIONAL, P.O. BOX 570842, DALLAS, TX 75357-0842. OBJECTIVES OF NUMISMATICS INTERNATIONAL Numismatics International is a non-profit educational organization. Its Objectives are: to encourage and promote the science of numismatics by specializing in areas and nations other than the United States of America; to cultivate fraternal relations among collectors and numismatic students; to encourage and assist new collectors; to foster the interest of youth in numismatics; to stimulate and advance affiliations among collectors and kindred organizations; and to acquire, share, and disseminate knowledge. MEMBERSHIP FEES: Individual & Club Memberships, $20.00 annually; Junior Membership (18 years of age and under), $15.00 annually; Senior Membership (70 years of age and older), $15.00 annually. Numismatics International Bulletin Volume 42 May 2007 Number 5 From the Editor's Desk………………………………………………………... 97 Donations Report……………………………………………………………… 107 Bill Mullan The Coins of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik............................................ 98 Mark McMenamin A New Carthaginian Coin from the Second Punic War................................. 106 Yuichi Nishikawa Japan - Local Coins: Gold and Silver Coins Minted by Local Lords…………... 108 Cartagena of the Indies, or Mint of Cuenca?................................................... 110 Herman Blanton Frederick V Elector Palatine and Elizabeth Stuart…………………………...... 112 Howard L. Ford English Coin Types: A Continuing Series, The Tudor Testoons……….............. 114 Ariadne: The Last and First Empress………………………………………….. 116 Brass and Bronze………………………………………………………………. 116 Crossword Puzzle……………………………………………………………… 117 Member Notices………....................................................................................... 118 N I As I prepare this month's Bulletin the spring season is just beginning. The winter season of international auctions is over and the spring auctions are approaching. If you are actively collecting, this is a good time of year for hunting. Good luck. By now readers of our bulletins should all know who won last year's article contest. I hope the announcement encourages you to write for the Bulletin. My backlog of articles has grown a small amount since the time I began the editing job. Thank you. But it still is short of where it should be. This month's subject matter is a bit lighter, with some satire (within Bill Mullan's article) and with a crossword puzzle for your amusement. The "Attribution Assistance Request" from the March issue was well addressed by the membership; see two of the responses on the Member Notice pages. Mark McMenamin reports a discovery coin and we have an interesting short reprint from the Gaceta Numismatica, published by the Spanish Numismatic Society, dealing with the discovery and attribution process of shipwreck salvaged coins. The donations report includes those monies received with dues payments since the last report. We received various other contributions also, which are appreciated and acknowledged, even though not listed in this report. Thank you all. Herman Blanton NI ISSN: 0197-3088 Copyright 2007 Numismatics International P.O. Box 570842, Dallas, TX USA 75357-0842 97 The Coins of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik Bill Mullan NI #1040 Introduction About Catalogs I apologize in advance to those of you who know the value of coins without the help of a catalog. I have learned over the years that the catalogs are often skewed one way or another. This article relies on information found in the book Standard Catalog of World Coins, by Chester Krause and Clifford Mishler. I trust that using the same book through many editions will let me track prices as I go. In the beginning, about 1965, all I knew was R.S. Yeoman's A Catalog of Modern World Coins (the Brown Book). Wayte Raymond and Robert Friedberg were out there somewhere but Yeoman was my man. The sixth edition, copyright 1964, was the first to come my way; and I still have my copy with check marks next to the coins I had acquired and notes on the margins of some pages about what I still needed. In 1966 the Brown Book's coverage cut off at 1950 and Current Coins of the World (the White Book) was published as a follow-on. It covered all of the new issues and overlapped the coverage of the Brown Book by including coins back to the Second World War. This overlap is a good thing; KM please note. The contents of the Brown Book were then frozen except for new discoveries and price adjustments. From then on all of the action was in the White Book that was published in at least 11 more editions. After a while I began to encounter coins that Yeoman didn't cover. His books began with 1850, so W.D. Craig's book covering the years 1750-1850 was the next addition to my library. The first edition came out in 1966. Next were added a whole shelf full of specialized books that included mintages so I could deal with the rarity factor. In 1972 the first edition of Standard Catalog of World Coins hit the market. It was for me most welcome. In one volume it combined all of the information for the years 1850 to 1970 contained in most of the references I had been using up to that time. I will be critical of the KM catalog in this article but I don't want to give the impression that I don't appreciate it. The book is useful to me on a daily basis; I just wish it were perfect! Ever faithful to my numismatic roots I continued to buy Yeoman's books. The last Brown Book I have is the 12th edition dated 1978. The demise of the Yeoman type of book is a shame because I know of no good yet affordable catalog for children or the adult beginner. KM's Collecting World Coins, priced at about $25 is the only such book available. It throws the inexperienced collector into all the mintage and grading complications that youngsters, at least, should not have to contend with. 98 About the Project I do not claim to be a German coin expert. As a matter of fact I am more of an amasser of coins than a numismatist. However, the coins of the Democratic Republic of Germany (GDR) have attracted my attention because the series is of considerable length and it is now complete. Once I got into the subject some fascinating questions arose. If ever these questions are to be answered, now is the time because some of the people who worked in the Berlin mint and who made decisions concerning these coins are still alive, perhaps still working in that mint. I invite the people who know the facts to correct my woolly-headed conjectures. One such question comes immediately to mind. For the most part "The Wall" followed the boundaries of Berlin. It deviated from that course at the Western edge of the city apparently enclosing some of the British Sector. Why was that? See the map. Now that almost two decades have passed since the last coin of the GDR was struck a survey of these coins seems appropriate. Among other things I hope to include little biographies of the people honored in the series and conjecture about why they were picked. Equally as interesting is why some others were not. All the while we are looking at the coins of the GDR we will be casting a glance at the FDR (Federal Republic of Germany) to see how the two Germanys differed in the treatment of their coins. It is my intention to cover all the coins in a series of articles. The first, about trade coins, accompanies this prologue. The commemoratives will be the subject of future articles which hopefully will be published in the NI Bulletin as I complete them. When I refer to the Democratic Republic of Germany by initials I have used the form GDR, the initials of the English translation of Deutsche Demokratische Republik rather than DDR as it appears on the coins. This seems to be the preference of the authors of the books I have used as references and is in keeping with my tendency to think of the Soviet Union as USSR rather than CCCP which appears on their coins. Some Background: The Beginning and End of East Germany On the 7th of May 1945 Russia, France, Great Britain, and the United States, prepared to govern a defeated Germany in accordance with the agreements reached at Yalta and Potsdam. Their plan was to divide the country as well as the city of Berlin into separate zones which would be governed even-handedly by the four major powers, overseen by a central control commission. The city of Berlin was located entirely within the Russian Zone, but access by land, water, and air was guaranteed by the governing treaty. From the first the Allies found it difficult to deal with the Russians. The Russian plan was to make the allied occupation of Berlin so bothersome that they would pack up and leave the defeated Germans to their fate at the hands of the Russians. 99 Germany was a devastated land. While the money of Germany remained plentiful it was virtually worthless. The Western Allies and the USSR brought with their conquering armies their own forms of military money but its use by the general public was forbidden. Uncertainty about the currency helped bring about a black market, kept food and other merchandise off of the legitimate market, discouraged investment and dashed the hopes of the people for a return to a normal life. It was mostly barter that kept the people from starving, for neither East nor West Germany, had a viable currency of its own. When describing this time, most historians agree that the cigarette was the most acceptable medium of exchange. To further their plan, Russia began in March of 1948 to make land communication between the Allied zones of occupied Germany and the city of Berlin more difficult. While the railroads, autobahns and canals remained open, the Russians slowed traffic by introducing regulations that brought everything to a halt for hours at a time. At that time, the people of West Berlin could still travel into the nearby zone of East Germany that surrounded the city. Both nations profited by the easy exchange of goods and services this arrangement afforded. 100 When the Allies issued a new currency for their zones of Germany, Russia replied by issuing money for their zone of influence (for coins see Table 1), and shut down all land and water communication between the Western controlled zones of Germany and Berlin. It was not until September of 1949 that the allies merged the French, British, and American Sectors of Germany into what would become the Federal Republic of Germany on May 5, 1955. GDR (1948-50) W. Germany (1948-9) Catalog Mintage Catalog Mintage One Pfennig KM #1 298,200,000 KM #AlOl 586,081,000 Five Pfennig KM #2 205,072,000 KM #102 252,441,000 Ten Pfennig KM #3 232,537,000 KM #103 498,518,000 Fifty Pfennig KM #4 67,703,000 KM #104 152,453,000 Total pieces 803,512,000 1,489,493,000 Table 1 For insight into the origins of the design of type one coins, see below. A 1,000 YEAR OLD COIN OF THE GDR This aluminum coin dated 948 is most likely a precursor of GDR KM #1. "Deutschland" in the legend suggests that it is from Germany and thus from the reign of Otto the Great (AD 912-73). Otto spent most of his rule trying to bring order to Germany and disorder to the Slavs who had a nasty habit of invading from the East. Since it is highly unlikely that the Germans of the time knew anything about aluminum, which was discovered much later (in 1827), this coin may have been struck on a crude planchet made from the wreckage of aircraft shot down during some border unpleasantness. A bit of collaborating evidence can be seen in a wall mural located in a castle of the period that shows what appears to be the remains of a bi-plane studded with arrows or short lances. The absence of a mint mark indicates that the coin was struck in Philadelphia or one of its northern suburbs. On second thought it may be a contemporary counterfeit of the extraordinary popular "denier," also known as the "penny," first struck by Pepin and introduced by Charlemagne into the rest of the world (then called the European Common Market). The counterfeiter purposely misspelled "penny" to avoid the death penalty that was all the rage in the 900s. 101 It is surprising that each of the occupiers produced coinage in 1948 before either of the competing federations was officially declared. The money of the West was issued by the newly organized central bank, the Bank Deutscher Lander, so strictly speaking it was not issued in the name of the country. East German money, on the other hand, was issued in the name of all Germany. It was the fond hope of the Russians that when the Allies became discouraged they would quit and the government in the East would be extended to all of Berlin and eventually to all of Germany. The Allies answered the Russian isolation of Berlin by beginning to supply the city by air. Haltingly at first but with ever-increasing vigor the airlift did what it had to do. (Lest his name be lost for future generations, the man largely responsible for organizing the airlift and making it work was a U.S. Air Force general, William H. Turner). For fifteen months the Berlin airlift supplied the people of that city with food and fuel, thus thwarting the Russians' plan and confirming the division of Germany into two countries. At its peak the Allies moved into Berlin an average of 7,845 tons of cargo per day. The record for a single day was set on Easter Sunday 1949 when over 13,000 tons came in. Not a huge load for ships, just one medium sized freighter load, but a prodigious amount to move by airplane. In the process some 73 Allied airmen as well as 5 Germans on the ground lost their lives. Another remarkable part of the airlift is the fact that not only were landing strips on both Gatow and Templehof airports extended while planes continued to use them, but a third airport, Tegel, was built on the site of the former Wehrmacht training grounds. Since the amount of cement needed for this work could not be brought in by air, 17,000 citizens of Berlin recovered 10,000,000 bricks from the rubble of the city and laid a 24 inch deep foundation for a landing strip over a mile long. After the Allies had begun to consolidate their zones in the west of Germany, the Russians instituted in eastern Germany a new government under the name of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It came into being on October 11, 1949. Russia tried to maintain the myth that the GDR was truly a German nation by keeping Russian involvement in the new republic as inconspicuous as conditions permitted. In fact, the USSR had a firm hand on everything that went on in East Germany. The Allies introduced new currency in the name of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland in 1950, and East Germany issued new currency in 1952, still in the name of all Deutschland (TYPE TWO coinage). It was not until 1956 that a coin, the one mark with catalog number KM #12, was issued in the name of the German Democratic Republic, the first of the TYPE THREE coins. It was followed by minor coins with the same design. As explained earlier, these coins will be the subject of an article that will follow this one in good time. 102 Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 One Pfennig Five Pfennig Ten Pfennig KM #1 1949E KM #6 1952A KM #10 1963A 17 mm 19 mm 21 mm Figure 1 The relative prosperity of the two Germanys may be surmised by comparing the coin production of the two. In the division of the German Third Reich the East got about 30% of the population and land area. At the beginning, in 1948/49, the East minted about 30% of the total coins minted by both Germanys. However, the East minted only 12.7% of the total of the coins shown in the table below, and that compares only the denominations that both countries struck. The West German two pfennig, fifty pfennig, and one mark coins, not struck by the East, and denominations not included in the above calculation, almost equaled the production of the East. See Table 2. GDR (1952-53) W. Germany (1950) Catalog Mintage Catalog Mintage One Pfennig KM #5 511,387,000 KM #105 2,970,966,000 Two Pfennig KM #106 100,908,000 Five Pfennig KM #6 207,080,000 KM #107 1,100,617,000 Ten Pfennig KM #7 122,036,000 KM #108 1,698,046,000 Fifty Pfennig KM #109.1 413,402,000 One Mark KM #110 230,959,000 Total pieces 840,503,000 6,514,898,000 Table 2 103 The two Germanys struggled along side by side with the East taking ever more stringent measures to keep their population under control until 1961, when the infamous wall was constructed. The wall zigzagged through the city of Berlin, following the border of the Russian zone, but it also extended around the Allied zones, cutting off the people of East Germany from contact with the people of West Berlin. It remained a constant reminder of the separation of the two Berlins until it finally came down in 1989. The first cracks became apparent when Mikhail Gorbachev announced his policies of Glasnost (Openness) and Perestroika (Reorganization) in Russia. The leaders of East Germany, whose economy was better than that of Russia, did not feel that the GDR had any need for these new policies and resisted them. Glasnost opened the borders with their neighbors, however, and soon East Germans who took vacation trips to Prague didn't come back. By July 1989 up to 25,000 of them were "homesteading" in Budapest and Prague. While the GDR applied pressure on Czechoslovakia and Hungary to return the truants, controls at the Austrian border were relaxed and large numbers of East Germans began to make their way to the West via that route. Both Czechoslovakia and Hungary continued to complain about the burden this traffic imposed on them, so in October of 1989 Erich Honecker, then head of the ruling party of the GDR, came up with what he thought was a solution. During the 1980's the GDR had been ridding itself of malcontents and agitators by expelling them from the country. Between the years 1950 and 1989 as many as 15,000 East Germans made it to the West each year, many of them expelled by the GDR. What Honecker planned to do was to use that method to move people from Prague to the West and humiliate them in the process. Around 12,000 of those that had fled to Prague were placed on sealed railroad cars that took them to West Germany via East Germany. While onboard the railcars their GDR papers were taken away, and it was announced that they had been declared "unwanted expellees," who were being thrown out of the country. Instead of heaping shame on these unfortunates, the people of East Germany gathered in railroad stations and along the railway right of way waving to them and cheering as they passed by. Some even tried to force their way into the cars and had to be repelled by armed soldiers. When these evacuees arrived in the West they littered the train platforms with East German coins and paper money they felt was then worthless. I remember watching television pictures of workmen with push-brooms sweeping up piles of this money and wondering at the time if some scarce late-date coins were in the rubbish they were clearing away. The end of the wall came quickly. The fortieth anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic was approaching. Large celebrations were planned and grand speeches were prepared. Activities associated with these preparations served in part to disguise the unrest among the populace. The flight of people to the West continued in ever-increasing numbers. Many of those who did not flee joined ever larger street protests in Berlin and other cities, especially Leipzig and Dresden. The pressure was too much for the government to resist. On November 9th the gates in the 104