Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith
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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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- Aug 20, 2004
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I got out some of the old German money from my Grandparents (and young father) last night.
The great European depression, in 1929, was so severe that entire governments went bankrupt.
My grandfather was a coal miner in a small town in Germany. Every week, he had to take his paper money to the market square in his small town and have it re-stamped with a current value. There is an Eintausend Mark (1000) note that is over-stamped Eine Millarde (1,000,000,000) - Yep, that is one BILLION. That is ten million percent inflation.When inflation passed a million percent, the government stopped printing money.
There are hand signed funf millonen (5,000,000) and einhundert millonen (100,000,000) mark notes that were printed by the coal mine he worked for, since no one would take a reichsbanknote (government treasury money). Eventually he was paid twice a day, 50 billion marks each time. He would take the huge stack of money to the market on his way home and no one would sell anything for it, but if he had zwei pfennig ( two cents) in coin ,he could by a loaf of bread.Coins became the currency of trade. Gold and silver coins were valuable, copper and bronze, still good. It was not uncommon at all to see two and three hundred year old coins used to by food.
Grosvter Max (grandpa Max) left Germany in 1930 to come to the USA. He didn't think the US depression actually qualified as one, because it was so mild ( talk about perspective). Since the paper money was worthless, he used coins as his money to pay for the boat fare and expenses. It took a small chest of coins, according to dad. I still have a small box of the old coins and money they didn't use up.
When they got here, grandpa got a job in one week, running high pressure boilers ( and shoveling the coal in them) twelve hours a day,seven days a week for the entire depression. He never learned English until 1935, because he worked alone at his job. Luckily, he had run the HP boilers at the coal mine in Germany( used to run the steam drills), and knew the trade. Skilled jobs were fairly safe durring the depression (here), but manual labor jobs were scarce, since there were twenty men looking for each job.
Just a small peek into how much better we have it than our forebears.
Stacy
The great European depression, in 1929, was so severe that entire governments went bankrupt.
My grandfather was a coal miner in a small town in Germany. Every week, he had to take his paper money to the market square in his small town and have it re-stamped with a current value. There is an Eintausend Mark (1000) note that is over-stamped Eine Millarde (1,000,000,000) - Yep, that is one BILLION. That is ten million percent inflation.When inflation passed a million percent, the government stopped printing money.
There are hand signed funf millonen (5,000,000) and einhundert millonen (100,000,000) mark notes that were printed by the coal mine he worked for, since no one would take a reichsbanknote (government treasury money). Eventually he was paid twice a day, 50 billion marks each time. He would take the huge stack of money to the market on his way home and no one would sell anything for it, but if he had zwei pfennig ( two cents) in coin ,he could by a loaf of bread.Coins became the currency of trade. Gold and silver coins were valuable, copper and bronze, still good. It was not uncommon at all to see two and three hundred year old coins used to by food.
Grosvter Max (grandpa Max) left Germany in 1930 to come to the USA. He didn't think the US depression actually qualified as one, because it was so mild ( talk about perspective). Since the paper money was worthless, he used coins as his money to pay for the boat fare and expenses. It took a small chest of coins, according to dad. I still have a small box of the old coins and money they didn't use up.
When they got here, grandpa got a job in one week, running high pressure boilers ( and shoveling the coal in them) twelve hours a day,seven days a week for the entire depression. He never learned English until 1935, because he worked alone at his job. Luckily, he had run the HP boilers at the coal mine in Germany( used to run the steam drills), and knew the trade. Skilled jobs were fairly safe durring the depression (here), but manual labor jobs were scarce, since there were twenty men looking for each job.
Just a small peek into how much better we have it than our forebears.
Stacy
