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German Coin Guide (1871-present) online

Started by chrisild, July 19, 2008, 02:17:31 PM

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chrisild

You know how people sometimes ask for more info about a coin but cannot provide a photo that would make identification easier? Well, here is help ... for German coins issued between 1871 and today.

The Gietl-Battenberg publishing house has just launched a new website called "Coinfinder". Despite the English name, the site is in German, as it is based on the famous Jaeger catalog. And no, they don't give the catalog away for free. ;) But if all you know or can read is the year and maybe that big digit which could indicate the face value, try it out:

http://www.coinfinder.de/

In the "Prägejahr" field you enter the year that appears on the coin. "Wertzahl" is the digit/s indicating the face value. Then there is a "Währungsbezeichnung" pop-up menu; select the name that determines the currency unit - Mark, Euro, etc. You have to provide at least one of these infos; then click the "Suchen" button.

The result will be a list of matching results - the more data you entered before, the shorter the list will be of course. Click the small image to get an enlarged view, or click on "Weitere Details" to see more detailed information about the coin.

Typically you will see in which years the piece was minted, the size/diameter and the Jaeger number. For commemorative and collector coins there will also be a brief description of the occasion. Any information beyond that, however, requires buying the catalog. Click on the "Blätterkatalog" online book symbol to view it.

The first 50 or so pages of the Jaeger catalog are free to view online; the remaining 800 pages require a purchase. As far as I can tell, you cannot buy specific pages or chapters. The price is the same as the one of the printed catalog. But using the Coinfinder to quickly identify a coin does not incur any fees. Note that the Jaeger catalog does not only list coins from the German Reich and today's Federal Republic, but also those from the GDR (East Germany), Saarland, Danzig, colonies and various occupied territories. With very few exceptions, it does not cover Notgeld though.

Christian

Figleaf

I gave it a try with a difficult search: all coins in heller denominations. Sure enough, it came up very quickly with a more complete list than mine, as it included the coins of Bohemia-Moravia. Hadn't thought of that. :-\

I am not so sure about the business model, though. These coins can also be looked up on KM's site. The starting point of 1871 makes it more limited than KM also, but the pictures are superb. The site is aimed at people who "found" a bunch of really old coins in a really old cigarette tin. However, there's also the detectorist crowd. They find much older coins that are much more worn. Now that the Saurma coin collection has disappeared from the web, there would have been a market for a site of German coins up to say 1700 that's not covered by KM.

Nevertheless, I applaud the publishers for a site that clearly aims at getting newbies started in the world of coins.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

chrisild

The primary difference, I think, is the language - numismaster.com is in English, coinfinder.de is in German. And not everybody who collects German coins speaks English ... As for 1871, well, that is how the Jaeger catalog began back in the 1940s; made sense since before 1871 there was no Germany in the sense of a unified coin issuing country. A later starting point, such as 1949 when this country was founded, would be fine too but limit the range even further. Of course Gietl-Battenberg publishes catalogs that go further back or have a global scope, but AFAIK those cannot (yet) be viewed online.

There is a PDF file which explains why they launched the site - seems they had many "what do I have here?" questions from collectors. And as a side effect ;) they can offer and sell the Jaeger catalog to collectors who want/need all the information that a "world" catalog such as the KM cannot provide.

Christian

Prosit

I have the KM Standard Catalog of German coins 1601-present (2nd ed.).  A nice catalog but difficult to find a coin if you don't know what you are looking for and I usually don't.

Dale

chrisild

The "CoinFinder" for any piece that is in the Jaeger catalog will soon have an extra feature: values or prices. The basic version of CoinFinder is free, but if you want to have access to price and mintage info, that will cost €4.90 for one year.

CoinFinder website: http://www.coinfinder.de/
Info/Instructions: http://www.gietl-verlag.de/muenz/coinfinder.pdf

The CoinFinder site (and the PDF file) is in German, as that is the primary language of the target customers. In about a week (21 April 2011) these additional features should be available.

Christian