Pre-Euro German Deutsche Marks worth anything?
 

A friend recently gave me one ten DM note and two twenty DM notes and said they were cleaning out their closet from a trip a dozen years ago and gave them to me as souvenirs. I haven't called a foreign exchange office but will instead ask the Ft experts whether they still hold any value or if the jump to the Euro rendered them without value. I don't have any Germany travel plans, just asking more for my own curiosity than anything else.

:)

One Deutsche Mark (DEM) is worth EUR 0.51129 (you need to round that to the nearest Eurocent ;)), so the EUR value of your DEM 50.00 will buy you lunch for one if you're not going somewhere fancy (DEM 50 used to buy you dinner for two if you didn't go anywhere fancy, but that's getting into OMNI territory).

DEM coins and notes can be exchanged at any Bundesbank branch, at the official exchange rate and free of charge ( Bundesbank info page, but do mind the somewhat restricted branch opening hours)

DM banknotes can only be changed at the Bundesbank branches,not at other banks.
There are, however, certain shops who still take DM. This is an advertising campaign that was started a while ago after it became known that there must be millions of leftover DM hidden in people's piggy banks and saving socks even years after the Euro. These shops have a big sticker showing a 1 DM coin attached to their windows.

When I first read the title of this thread, I assumed somebody would ask if the old German currency "Deutsche Mark" had any value before we got the EURO.

The answer would be yes, it was real money :cool:

What about East German currency?
 

Hmm, I know there are some East German coins in the house. I wonder if these have any value?

With the price of metal going up, even aluminum coins will have some value soon...

You might want to hang onto them - they could be very interesting souvenirs in a few years!

Then again, maybe I'm the only one who thinks that's cool. :)

I still carry around a 10DM note in my wallet from my time as a student in Germany in the 1990s... and I even have an ultra-rare 5DM note around here somewhere...!

Not actually THAT rare...

They were getting rare in the 1980s. Then the Berlin Wall fell, and East Germans were flocking to West Germany in their thousands.

The rule at the time was that every East German citizen entering West German territory was entitled to a gift of DM 15 from the West German government. Up to November 1989 there had been very few East German visitors to West Germany because by and large East Germany wasn't allowing its citizens to travel to the West (there were certain exceptions).

Post 9 November 1989 the trickle of East Germans collecting their DM 15 suddenly turned into a huge crowd... and all of a sudden all those 5 DM notes came back into circulation.

IIRC, the amount of Begrüßungsgeld started out at 30DM and increased to 100DM by 1989.

I stand corrected... 15 DM was the amount East Germans were allowed to change in East Germany. Those 5 DM notes that suddenly started to appear must all have come from East German bank vaults.

(I knew 15 DM came into it somewhere, it's just that I mis-remembered the "where"!)

what was the topic of this thread? Begrüssungsgeld? ;) please feel free to start a new thread on this interesting topic. (I can move specific posts if you want, just contact me) but its unfair to the OP to hijack this thread.

chrissxb
co-moderator
germany forum

As was stated by tom tulpe, DM banknotes and coins dating from 1948 and later can be exchanged at any time by the Bundesbank. Since you say you aren't going to be in Germany any time soon, the page tom tulpe linked to contains a form (available in English) you can send in to the Bundesbank office in Mainz along with your banknotes and/or coins; they will either transfer the money or send you a check.

Don't Use This Service
 

Don't do it - EUR 33,000 :eek: have allegendly be embezzled by Bundesbank employees in charge of the "mail us you DEM" service.

Hmmh...I missed that one. However, now is probably the safest time to do it, don't you think, given all of the scrutiny they must be facing.

Fair point ^