| Author |
 Replies: 11 / Views: 1,429 |
|
|
New Member
South Africa
1 Posts |
German East African Coin-1916 attached. Type A. Apparently only 6935 minted of which few are left. Does anyone have any more information on this coin as well as a rough value estimate? Coin is in good condition and has been handed down many generations.   |
|
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
The famous Tabora Sovereign.
Up there for fame, with the Sammy Marks Gold 'Tickey'.
Beware, fakes in good gold abound with these.
Same as the famous Veld Pond and the Fine and Coarse Beard types of the Burger Ponds.
In 1894, the German Empire also issued a gold 20 Marks for New Guinea, under the auspices of the German Neu Guinea Compagnie. It has a very beautiful Bird of Paradise design on the reverse.
All of the above coins are rare, and very much sought after, and bring astonishing prices at public auction.
Edited by sel_69l
06/24/2021 07:31 am
|
|
Moderator
 United States
56855 Posts |
And  to CCF. John1  |
|
CCF Master Historian of USA Commemoratives
United States
12272 Posts |
Collecting history one coin or medal at a time! (c) commems. All rights reserved.
|
|
Moderator
United States
188317 Posts |
to the Community! |
|
Moderator
Australia
16826 Posts |
The Tabora-minted coins, both the gold 15 rupien and the brass 20 heller, are considered wartime emergency issues. German East Africa was the only German colony not to fall swiftly to Allied troops at the start of the war. The Tabora mint was a "field mint" and the coins used to pay the German troops and purchase supplies. Vastly outnumbered by British (mostly from South Africa) and Belgian troops, the Germans ran a guerilla campaign for the entire length of the war, surrendering only when word of the Armistice was confirmed. Post-war Germany regarded the East African commander, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, as a war hero for being the only German general to successfully and repeatedly defeat the British.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
|
|
CCF Master Historian of USA Commemoratives
United States
12272 Posts |
@Sap: A very interesting piece of history - thanks much for posting! I enjoyed learning something new.
Collecting history one coin or medal at a time! (c) commems. All rights reserved.
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21786 Posts |
Sap: Thanks for the history !  |
|
Valued Member
United States
277 Posts |
I've read that many of these coins were used by the Germans to pay local tribesmen who would only accept gold as payment to perform military work for the German side. I'm not familiar with which tribes in East Africa that may have been involved with the Germans, but still interesting none the less. I'd guess that many of the tribesmen saw the dingy 20 heller pieces the Germans were punching out and thinking "No way am I accepting this, I want gold!"
Question for anyone for this coin: How many would have survived to today? Would the number be less than 1,000? Combining the mintages of the two varieties listed in numista (9,035 and 6,395 for a total of 15,430), a 1,000 total pieces surviving would indicate a survival rate of around 6.5%. Would that sound reasonable for a coin like this, or could the survival rate perhaps be larger or smaller?
|
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
7940 Posts |
Examples with damage due to mounting are still selling at about $3,000. If certified and graded, can be up to twice as high: https://www.coinarchives.com/w/resu...&results=100Quote:
1,000 total pieces surviving Too low in my opinion. Using acsearch, you can find over 700 sales of this coin in the last 15 years (that surprised me). Some of those are the same coin being re-sold, but that is a awful high number of these coming up at auction to believe3 that only 1,000 exist. Edited by tdziemia
06/25/2021 10:47 am
|
|
Valued Member
United States
277 Posts |
@tdziemia Good points, if auction sale numbers for these coins is 700, perhaps a good number of these survived over the years, definitely more than 1000. It's so hard to find survival estimates for world coins though. We have pretty good data regarding how many US coins survived over the years, but when it comes to world coins, the data is pretty much non-existant. If say 25% of these coins survived until 2021,that would mean 3,858 examples are left, which is still pretty low. However, this number is just a guess on my part  |
|
Moderator
Australia
16826 Posts |
There would probably be records of how many the British captured and destroyed, though this of course would not be sorted by variety.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
|
| |
Replies: 11 / Views: 1,429 |
|
Posted 06/24/2021 08:16 am
