Pattern coinage from 1939 Germany occupies an uncomfortable historical position — these pieces were struck experimentally as the Reich was actively conserving strategic metals ahead of the war it was already planning. Nickel-plated iron represented a cost-reduction approach that would define wartime German coinage, and this Reichsmark pattern was part of that transition testing. The regular circulating 1 Reichsmark had been issued in .500 silver as recently as 1927; by 1939 that was simply no longer acceptable to the armaments economy.
Pn100 is sparsely documented, and confirmed surviving examples are rare outside institutional holdings.
Pattern coinage from 1939 Germany occupies an uncomfortable historical position — these pieces were struck experimentally as the Reich was actively conserving strategic metals ahead of the war it was already planning. Nickel-plated iron represented a cost-reduction approach that would define wartime German coinage, and this Reichsmark pattern was part of that transition testing. The regular circulating 1 Reichsmark had been issued in .500 silver as recently as 1927; by 1939 that was simply no longer acceptable to the armaments economy.
Pn100 is sparsely documented, and confirmed surviving examples are rare outside institutional holdings.