Originally Posted by
ajax
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.