Is It Just Me Or Does Germany Have More Mints Than Anyone

And the time before 1871 (German Empire was found then) it is quiet more interesting and difficult.
Beginning in the medieval time, there were hundreds of small or bigger states and countries, free cities, bishops and archbishops, counts and even kingdoms inside the HRR ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire )

It is very hard to understand the early german monetary system. the problem is, that there have not only been Mark and Pfennig. other coins were called e.g. heller, kreutzer, kreitzer, penning, thaler, taler,schwaren, stueber, sechsling, dukat, gulden, dicken, oort, groschen, dreier, batzen, blaffert, albus,.... there are dozens of different coins.
we also have no complete catalogue for german coins before 1800. therefore you must buy several hundred books.
a lot of the former german coins were also struck in mints across europe. from italy and austria, switzerland and france, belgium, netherlands, poland, czech and slovakia and the baltic states.

collecting german coins pre 1800 is very special and interesting. but the krause-cataloques are not the best books, they are only kind of overview. there are too many mistakes and wrong definitions in them.

http://www.amazon.de/Gro%C3%9Fer-de...p/3866460759
http://www.amazon.de/Deutscher-M%C3...f=pd_sim_b_3
http://www.amazon.de/Kleiner-deutsc...54185&sr=1-7

Oh and don´t forgeget the coins of Saarland.
And the ones of Danzig and also the German occupied countries during WWI and WWII.
And the German "Notgeld" and the money from the german colonies up to 1918.
I think in its long history, Germany issued more coins, than all other countries of the worl, together.

Well, I collect coins from here (Federal Republic of Germany, BRD) too, and have quite a few from the Deutsches Reich (1871-1949) as well. But I do not consider the Federal Republic "West" (guess that means both before and after Saarland joined) and Federal Republic "Unified" (guess that means after the Eastern states joined) to be different. After all, the only change in terms of coinage was that we got a fifth mint. Now the introduction of the euro cash actually changed the designs and denominations, and more. :)

But of course everybody is free to make his/her own categories. What I found peculiar though is those " DDR" links. Are they inserted automatically? They take you to a page where DDR (Doubled Die Reverse) is explained, but what you meant is the GDR, it seems ...

Oh, and have we mentioned the Mayer Mint? That is a private mint in Karlsfeld (near Munich, BY) which actually produces coins for some countries. Usually silver/gold collector coins though.

Christian

Ah, I see (and just noticed the effect in my own reply), thanks!

Christian