West Germany's postwar coinage was rebuilt almost from scratch under Allied occupation authority, and this denomination entered circulation just as the Deutsche Mark itself was barely two years old — the 1948 currency reform having effectively wiped out Reichsmark savings overnight. Production ran across three mints simultaneously from the outset: Hamburg (J), Munich (D), and Stuttgart (F), with Karlsruhe (G) added shortly after.
The brass-clad steel construction was a deliberate postwar economies measure, continued long past any material shortage. It outlasted the Federal Republic itself, running uninterrupted through reunification and right to the final year before euro changeover.
West Germany's postwar coinage was rebuilt almost from scratch under Allied occupation authority, and this denomination entered circulation just as the Deutsche Mark itself was barely two years old — the 1948 currency reform having effectively wiped out Reichsmark savings overnight. Production ran across three mints simultaneously from the outset: Hamburg (J), Munich (D), and Stuttgart (F), with Karlsruhe (G) added shortly after.
The brass-clad steel construction was a deliberate postwar economies measure, continued long past any material shortage. It outlasted the Federal Republic itself, running uninterrupted through reunification and right to the final year before euro changeover.