5 Mark

Is it me or there's a lot of horizontal lines on both sides? I hope nobody's polished it!

Having seen one of these before, I can say that the streaks appear to be the way the die were prepared (only the field is 'streaked', while all the raised area's are 'normal') are are most likely a design feature (why not, a big polished field looks pretty crap after a few days in circulation). You can find the same effect on Third Reich Zinc coins, however with less consideration to the direction of the streaking; methinks this was probably caused by overhaul or re-polishing the die faces.

Don't think it was "third party" polished. The horizontal lines occur with a few other issues too - as Zaggy wrote, probably part of the design. And the bright spot in the middle of the obverse is probably just the light. :) The coin is part of the Thomas Müntzer set (500th anniversary of his birth); the 10 M coin featuring a Müntzer portrait has a low mintage of about 40,000 only. This one, and the Mühlhausen 5 M piece, are Cu-Ni issues with higher mintages. For yours the figures are: 362,440 (regular issue), 134,700 (export quality), 3,200 (proof). About 95,000 were melted down afterwards.

By the way, while this was minted in early 1989, quite a few more (twelve, I think) came after it. The last GDR commem was issued in April 1990 ...

Christian

I think that the contrast between the fields and the angled roof lines of the cathedral makes the reverse look good. I like this coin.