Small Change from a Quarter Century of Great Changes
This is the first of a series of articles about the coins in what I refer to as my "main collection.' This is the collection I began in 1949 with coins brought to me by my big brother from his summer cruises with the Naval Reserve. Fifteen years later I defined the collection as type coins of the world since 1945. Five years after that I capped the collection as being coins from 1945-1969.
This quarter century is a period of history that began with the greatest war in history winding down, a large fraction of Europe ruled by monarchs, no man ever having broken the sound barrier (and lived to tell about it), with commercial air travel a luxury, television something for the future, splitting atoms something that was done in secret behind locked doors and fences, and the concept of colonial rule a given that was expected to continue forever.
The quarter century ended with a longer period of peace (in Europe at least) than had occurred in living memory, supersonic flight common for military planes and planned for commercial planes, millions of people flying about the country and the world, television the major means of entertainment in much of the world (There were even "fishbones" in the jungles of Brazil.), the number of monarchs in Europe cut by half, nuclear weapons hanging over civilization as a sword of Damocles, and most of the world's population living under governments (not necessarily democratic or efficient) run by the citizens of the country.
This was not history to me it was current events. I learned to read by reading the captions to the photographs in Life magazine. The first historical event I remember was the death of President Roosevelt. The second was Hiroshima.
So I set out to collect the hard money being used around the world during this era, and this series will examine how the coins illustrate some of the changes and totally ignore others. The set of all the non-gold coin types struck anywhere in the world with dates from 1945 through 1969 runs to more than three thousand items of which I currently am missing thirty-five.
The classic reference was the "brown book," R. S. Yeoman's A Catalogue of Modern World Coins which covered the era from circa? 1850 to the date of publication, he book ran through at least eight editions. In the last few years of the publication an abridged version was published, Current Coins of the World, the "white book.". This reported new issues but was limited to the last twenty-five years before publication.
The third edition spanned essentially 1945 to 1969. Both these books were aimed at type collectors. They listed each type with a "Y" number and gave the first and last dates the type was struck. Unlike Krause and Mishler's telephone book there was no indication of mintages, of relative rarities of different dates or even if the coins were struck in each year.
Future articles will examine the coins of one or two countries each.
SMALL CHANGE
by Halbert Carmichael
The title of this series of articles is an abbreviation of the jaw breaking: SMALL CHANGE FROM A CENTURY OF GREAT CHANGES. The series will be about coins from the period 1945 through 1969 from around the world. Each article will focus on a different country or group of countries and show how the coinage reflected, and sometimes failed to reflect, the changes that took place over this period.
We begin with:
Great Britain
It came as a shock to me as a teenager, which I was when I began this collection, that our mother country could have a coinage that so radically different from ours. Actually the Americans are the ones that strayed, the Brits had gotten along with their arcane system for over a thousand years.
The first British coins I saw were brought to me by my brother who crossed the Atlantic courtesy of the United States Navy. How anyone could operate with a coinage of farthings, half pennies, pennies, three pence, six pence, shillings, florins, half-crowns (but no crowns) was beyond me. The coins had the denominations in words, not numbers. The user was expected to know that there were twelve pence per shilling and that two shillings to the form and two and a half shillings to the half crown.
The farthing was a bronze coin about the size, and value, of our cent. It had a cute little bird on it. I didn't realize how aberrant that design was. Most British coins have heraldic designs and this bird remains to this day the only wild animal on a British coin. The half penny had a ship, the Gold Hind, in which Sir Francis Drake had great success as a pirate and circumnavigated the globe. The Brits conve-niently forget the first and emphasize the second.
British coins had the head of' the reigning monarch, a novel idea to me but actually far older than our practice of using dead presidents' images. The inscriptions also were in highly abbreviated Latin: "Georgius VI D G Britt Omn Rex Ind Imp", which translates as George VI by the grace of God king of all Britain and Indian Emperor. The Ind Imp was dropped in 1949 after India achieved its independence.
The smaller denominations were bronze: 95% copper with the balance zinc and tin. I have shown subsequently that all the British coins had at least some tin. US coins had only traces of tin. These three denominations remained unchanged in fabric until decimalization.
The larger denominations from the six pence up were struck in 500 fine silver until 1946 when it became necessary to remove silver from circulation to pay lend lease debts. That silver metal probably showed up in the US coinage of the late 40's and the 50's. All later six pence, shillings, forms, and half-crowns were struck in copper nickel.
In 1953 the portrait of Elizabeth II replaced that of George. In 196? a new portrait of Elizabeth was introduced showing her aging from a young woman to a mature woman.
Commemorative cupro-nickel crowns were struck in 1951, 1953. 1960. and 1965.
All things, good and bad, come to an end. And so in 1967 the United Kingdom switched from its historically significant, but awkward, pounds, shillings and pence system to a pound of one hundred new pence.
Thus we end the quarter century with Britain struggling bravely to keep up to date and maintain continuity.
Ireland
Ireland used the same denominations and fabric as the United Kingdom. All coins had the name Eire and a harp on the obverse
The reverses were more interesting. From the very inception of an independent Irish coinage in the 1920's, the Irish had wanted something different. They got it.
The reverses had a series of familiar animals: a woodcock, a pig, a hen and chicks, a hare, a wolf-hound, a bull, a salmon, and a horse on each of the denominations.
SMALL CHANGE (Part 2)
by Halbert Carmichael
Germany
My first German coins were brought to me by friends who traveled in Europe in the mid-1950's. This was then an exotic undertaking, and they brought me their left over pocket change.
1945 dawned with the Third Reich in the last stages of its collapse. As was true of many European countries Germany had been striking its coins in truly base metals: mostly zinc. Zinc coins with the Nazi emblem of the eagle holding the swastika in its talons were struck in the few months of 1945 that the Third Reich survived. Many of these Nazi era coins were picked up by GI's and brought back to the US. In circulated condition they are common in junk boxes even today. With the fall of the Reich this coinage stopped, but there was a desperate need for some sort of coinage. The solution was to simply replace the Nazi eagle with an eagle with no swastika. The zinc 1, 5, and 10 pfennig coins were struck from 1945 until 1948. These coins are difficult to find and fairly expensive for little pieces of zinc.
In 1949 the western occupying powers, the US, Britain, and France, instituted a monetary reform. This led to new coinage in the name of the "Bank Deutseher Lander," the bank of the German states. The reform also led the Russians to blockade Berlin, and the western countries responded with the Berlin airlift. The only time in history where the conquering countries paid to fly coal into the defeated country's capital.
By 1950 the Bundesrepublik Deutschland was established and began issuing coins: 1, 2, 5, 10 pfennig and 1/2, 1, 2, and 5 mark coins. To this day the same denominations are issued in the same sizes That's the result of one of the so-called economic miracle, the rise of the German economy from ruins to one of the most stable economies in the world. With four mints, eight denominations and fifty years this set of issues takes up seven pages in Krause and Mischler, almost none of which are priced at twice face value. Good economics makes for uninteresting numismatics.
The four mints and their mintmarks: D for Munich, F for Stuttgart, G for Karlsruhe, and J for Hamburg, are a throwback to the days when Germany was made up of a group of principalities and kingdoms, each with its own mint.
Where mid-twentieth century German numismatics gets more interesting is in the commemorative five mark pieces. Starting in 1952, each year the Bundesrepublik issued a one new silver five mark coin commemorating some person or institution, usually not an event. These coins are not small change and they cost a whole heap of change to buy. There is an active numismatic community in Germany, which has run the price up well over one thousand dollars for key dates.
The second part of German numismatics that is interesting is the coinage of the Deutsche Democratische Republic, better known as East Germany. These coins were first struck in 1948 and continued until after 1969. Unlike West Germany, the currency was not stable and shows some signs of inflation. With one exception the designs are stodgy: the value on one side and a simple heraldic gear and dividers on the other side. The exception is the 1949 fifty pfennig which shows a plow in front of an industrial scene. The smoke stacks are shown billowing smoke, quite appropriate for a country that had some of the world's worst air pollution problems.
SMALL CHANGE (Part 3)
by Halbert Carmichael
France
France and Italy pose interesting similarities and contrasts. Both countries pride themselves on their artistic tradition. Both countries have produced attractive coins, but the Italians have shown more imagination in the coin designs.
France suffered less damage from World War II than most of Europe. France also made no attempt to use precious metal for its coins, so it was able to start off with a stable coinage in a range of denominations from 20 centime to 10 francs in the 1945. However, inflation set in. By 1954 it was necessary to make coins up to 100 francs. The value of a given denomination decreased continually. It was necessary to make increasingly larger denominations.
The French 5 franc coin was the first example I saw of the use of aluminum bronze. This is an alloy of 92% copper and 8% aluminum. The alloy has a gold color, is easy to fabricate, and doesn't tarnish.
In 1960 France responded to decades of inflation by revaluing the unit of currency, the franc. One new franc was worth one hundred old francs. They made the new coins of the same size and metal as the old ones of the same value. That meant they could continue to use the old coins. The poor tourist was left with a handful of coins some of which said 10 francs and some which said 10 centimes. If they were the same size. they were worth the same.
The French also tried to introduce a silver five franc coin, It didn't circulate widely, and I had friends tell me of banks which refused to give them out in change.
For real confusion try putting the story of French coinage together from the section in Krause and Mischler. They have all 10 franc coins listed together where they are 10 old francs or ten new francs.
Italy
Italy on the other hand has continued to suffer inflation. Its largest coin in 1946 was 1 lire, but that had risen to 100 L by 1954 and to 500 lire by 1958. Italy never revalued its currency. Therefore it strikes even larger denominations today.
Like France, Italy has a long, strong artistic heritage. Italy's coins reflect this. The little aluminum coins may not have been worth much, but they were beauties to behold. The simple inscriptions: a number for the denomination and Republica Italiana were set off by a simple artistically done object in the field of the coin: a bee, a bunch of grapes, a boat's tiller, a dolphin, a Pegasus, an idealized blacksmith (How many blacksmiths work in the nude?)
The later, higher denominations were struck in Acmonital, a fancy name for stainless steel. This metal is very hard, and the coins have very low relief.
By 1958 the need for larger and larger denominations was met by what is to me the most beautiful Italian coin. The obverse has the denomination, the name of the country, and three sailing ships (Columbus?). The reverse is what really sets the coin apart. A finely rendered portrait of a woman in Renaissance dress is surrounded by nineteen shields, The shields represent the nineteen regions into which the country had just been divided. The nineteen regions were made by grouping the countries ninety-five provinces. The whole undertaking was an attempt to decentralize the government. The shields are unlabeled, but they are arranged clockwise from Val d'Aosta in the north to Calabria in the south followed by Sicily and Sardinia. In contrast to the silver five franc the 500 lire did circulate. My first one was picked up in change.
Italy's refusal to revaluate led to the situation of the Zeccha, the Italian mint, not producing small change which was still needed for certain transactions. The Italians responded by using small candies as small change.
SMALL CHANGE (Part 4)
by Halbert Carmichael
Norway
Norway, Denmark and Sweden all have the kron, or crown, as their monetary unit. They do have minor variations in the spelling. The kron is divided into 100 ore. The o has either a slash through it or an umlaut indicating that it is pronounced: ooor.
The first thing that struck me about the Norwegian coins from the mid- 1940's was the use of iron. The second thing was that the coins which ran from 1 ore to 1 kronor were split into two series. The small denominations were in iron and solid. The larger denominations were in zinc and had holes. The third thing was the spelling of the country's name: Norge.
When stability returned after the end of World War II, the small coins were made of bronze and the larger ones of cupro-nickel, but they still had holes.
In 1957 a new king, Olav V, came to the throne. A new coinage was called for, and the Norwegians outdid themselves. The set of designs had the king's monogram on the obverse and an animal on the other side: a squirrel on the one ore, a black cock on the two, a moose (elk to the Europeans) on the five, a bee on the ten, a bird on the twenty-five, a dog on the fifty, and a horse on the krone. The black cock coin was in a display of "Birds on Coins" in the Smithsonian for many years where it was misidentified as a capercaille.
Denmark
Denmark used the opposite system from what Norway used: holes for smaller denominations and the larger denominations were solid.
Denmark's coinage was remarkable for its stability and lack of imagination. They changed designs only when the monarch died, and Danish kings were a long lived lot. They also used repetitious names: Frederick VIII was succeeded by Christian X who was succeeded by Frederick IX.
Denmark did strike some silver commemorative coins. Several involved milestones of the crown princess, now queen, Margrethe. One had a map of Greenland.
Sweden
Sweden is another country with spelling that is different from the English Sweden: Sverge
Not being directly involved in World War II, Sweden could afford to use precious metals in its major coins. Even then the silver was only 400 fine. The designs showed little imagination: a monogram or three crowns on one side and the denomination on the other.
Sweden did use portraits of its kings on the coins from one krona up. Once again they had long-lived kings. Just two kings, Gustav V and Gustav VI Adolf reigned from 1910 to 1971.
Iceland
Iceland, Island on the coins, is a small country (population less than that of Raleigh) with what was a simple coinage. Their krona is divided into 100 aurar. But if you have only one of the latter is called an eyrir. Coinage from 1 eyrir through 2 kronor was struck in base metals with simple designs. in 1968 they struck a nickel 50 kronur showing the parliament building commemorating fifty years of independence from Denmark, Later Icelandic coinage has been more imaginative.
Finland
The first thing you notice about Finnish coinage is the name: Suomen Tasavalta. The Finns speak a language that is not closely related to the languages of the rest of Europe.
Finland has a monetary unit called a markka. Its subdivision is one penni. There are 100 pennia in one markka. The plural of markka is markkaa. Finland has suffered from its close proximity to Russia, having gotten its independence only in 1917 and remaining in the sphere of strong Soviet influence until recently. In spite of this it has a strong democratic tradition.
The postwar coinage was a miserable set of small denominations in base metal until the revaluation in 1963. At that time they brought out a handsome and functional set ranging from one penni to one markka. These Coins had a heraldic lion standing on a sword and brandishing a sword and a stylized tree on the reverse. They later added a 5 markkaa with an ice-breaker on it.
In 1967 the Finns celebrated fifty years of independence with a silver ten markkaa coin. the coins shows five birds. After many years of searching for the identity of the birds, I found that the designer intended for them to be ospreys. They don't look like the ospreys I've seen.
Spitzbergen
An interesting and rare item of Scandinavian numismatics is the set of tokens struck for the Soviet coal mining concession on Spitzbergen, an island chain in the Arctic Ocean. The legend is in Cyrillic and the denominations are in kopeks.
SMALL CHANGE (Part 5)
by Halbert Carmichael
Soviet Union
The unit of currency in the Soviet Union is the ruble divided into 100 kopecks.
The Soviet Union, like several other Slavic countries, has an unusual set of denominations. The Soviet coinage includes, one, two, three, and five kopeck coins in aluminum bronze and ten, fifteen, and twenty kopeck coins in cupro-nickel. All had common designs: a number representing the value on one side, the abbreviated name in Cyrillic, CCCP, and the national arms on the other.
The United States has produced several coins with a number of stars to represent the number of states. The USSR, theoretically a union of independent republics, made a bow to their fifteen constituent republics by having fifteen ribbons around the wreath in the national arms. The wreath was used on all coins. In 1957 they gave up the fiction that the land taken from Finland in 1940 was a separate republic. One less republic, one less ribbon. The coin design was changed.
In 1961 the Soviets responded to inflation by a ten to one revaluation of the ruble, In 1963 I was told by a citizen of Moscow that the public were instructed to turn in the cooper-nickel coins, but allowed to use the aluminum bronze coins at the new rate.
The boring coin designs were relieved by a set of circulating commemoratives in 1967 to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. The designs included the cruiser Aurora which fired the signal shot for the storming of the winter palace and the monument honoring the cosmonauts.
All in all, the Soviet coinage reflects the society: dull and unimaginative with little real connection with working economics. Uncirculated specimens were hard to find since the Soviet government considered them property of the state only on loan to the citizens for their convenience.
The 1961 coinage introduced the use of a copper-nickel-zinc alloy for the 10 kopeck and larger coins. This alloy has a slight yellowish tinge when new and doesn't wear as well as copper-nickel or aluminum bronze. I have also found traces of manganese in this alloy.
SMALL CHANGE (Part 6)
by Halbert Carmichael
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 7)
by Halbert Carmichael
The Low Countries
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 8)
by Halbert Carmichael
Switzerland and Austria
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 9)
by Halbert Carmichael
Eastern Europe
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 10)
by Halbert Carmichael
Greece & Turkey
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 11)
by Halbert Carmichael
South Africa
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 12)
by Halbert Carmichael
East Africa
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 13)
by Halbert Carmichael
West Africa
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 14)
by Halbert Carmichael
North Africa
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 15)
by Halbert Carmichael
Africa
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 16)
by Halbert Carmichael
Northeast Africa
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 17)
by Halbert Carmichael
Israel
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 18)
by Halbert Carmichael
Levant and Arabia
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 19)
by Halbert Carmichael
Central Asia
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 20)
by Halbert Carmichael
India
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SMALL CHANGE (Part 21)
by Halbert Carmichael
???
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ã Copyright Raleigh Coin Club - 2001, 2002
The RCC grants permission to reprint any articles not copyrighted by the author for non-profit educational purposes only, provided the Raleigh Coin Club and the author are cited as the original source.