Numismatik-Cafe

Earlier this week I had an opportunity to look through a handful of between-the-wars Austrian coppers, the 1- and 2-groschen pieces dated 1925-38. As everybody here knows already, production of these little Austrian coppers was cut off by the Anschluss, and the Vienna mint—with its new “B” mintmark— began producing German coins instead.

These little Austrian coppers are common coins, of course, but being interested in them is an easy thing to do—they are one small but quite unmistakable step in that long descent into the nightmare that was World War II.

One coin in particular caught my eye, a 1930 1-groschen that had been converted by a counterstamp into a propaganda piece.....

One country wrestling with its neighbor—and itself—that, and the cataclysm to come, all captured in this one tiny copper coin.

v.

Please let me say first that I mean no harm or insult. Far from it.

It's just that this piece was of considerable interest to me because it seemed to me that the counter-stamp was contemporary to the issues it raised.

I know that graffiti was a issue on German coinage at various times during the 1930s, and have long thought (imagined?) that Hindenburg's large portrait on the 2RM and 5RM--because it so well filled the coin's fields--might have had as one of its design considerations the minimizing of opportunity for politically-minded graffiti artists.

Anyway, were Austrian coins of the '30s similarly afflicted? Perhaps even in the way this 1-groschen was counter-stamped?

Any remarks on this or related subjects would be most appreciated.

v.

I think the countermark shown above is a kind of personal protest against the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938 by changing the Austrian eagle into a modified German one. Similar manipulations of coins can be observed after the German-French War 1870/71, when the French capitulation was considered in France as a personal treason of Napoléon III. (s. below).

Regards klaupo

Thanks, klaupo. I too think it's of that "political comment" genre, just like the Napoleon III piece you posted.

Others I can think of include the Kaiser and his hat on the post-WWI alterations of Prussian state coinage, the counter-marking of the Irish coins during the c.'1970s version of "the troubles," the communist/social counter-marking of the Italian 2-lire coins of the 1920s (expensive to own now!), and then there are the "Hobo" nickels from the U.S. which can perhaps be seen as political comment on the poverty of the 1930s--and then also the (sometimes amazingly intricate) Italian coppers of the 1860s recut to show VEII cncased in Papal headgear.

What I was wondering was whether the push-pull of Austrian politics of the 1930s left behind any well-recognized group of coins counter-marked like this 1930 1-groschen, or indeed some of the graffiti-inscribed German coinage of the '30s (which I have read about and heard mentioned in a contemporary movie, but have never encountered myself).

I know there probably isn't much widespread interest in all this, but it seems like a worthwhile subject for a small collection or maybe a short article.

Anyway, danke klaupo.

v.