Today we're going to take a look at a few German junk silver coins, but first some history:
The cheerful games
The cheerful games ~ that's what the German government called the Summer Olympics of 1972. It was the second time that the Olympics took place in Germany. The first time was under Adolf Hitler during the Nazi Regime. This was still overshadowing the young federal republic of Germany. They tried their hardest to overcome this stigma and show West Germany as a peace-loving democracy. But it was all doomed to fail.
The not so Cheerful Games
After the games opened on August 20th, everything seemed to be going well, until September 5th. On this day a group of Palestinian terrorists, the Black September broke into the Olympic quarters and took all Israeli athletes hostage. After a botched rescue attempt from the German police, all hostages were dead. From this day on the Summer Olympics of 1972 were overshadowed by the so-called "Munich Massacre".
Commemorative 10 Mark coins
Even though a not so proud moment for the German government, they still minted five beautiful coins for the occasion. They were minted to help finance the Olympic Games, which they certainly did. The series was made of 625 silver and realised a profit of 700 million mark.
The size was with 32.50 mm (~1,28 inches) unusually large. This combined with the high mintage numbers made the 4 German mints struggle. They had to contract non-government mints to help them. This lead to massive differences in minting quality. Some batches were so different that ten coins of one mint were as tall as 11 from another. Even weight differences of 1 gram(~0.03 oz) occurred.
Despite this failure, the coins were a huge success.
Reverse ~ The Sun Variant is one of the rarer coins with a mintage of 9.5 million coins.
Sun Variant
This coin features the emblem of the 1972 Summer Olympics. It depicts a stylized sun, symbolising a bright future. On the reverse, the federal eagle (Bundesadler) is shown. Each reverse has its unique eagle design in this coin series.
The front reads "SPIELE DER XX OLYMPIADE IN DEUTSCHLAND", meaning "GAMES OF THE XX OLYMPICS IN GERMANY".
This little coin caused some uproar in East Germany. The two Germanies were still not reunited, and they took offence at West Germany claiming to be "Germany". They complained at the Olympic committee that a city, not a country gets nominated for the Olympics. Afterwards, West Germany had to change the inscription to "GAMES OF THE XX OLYMPICS IN MUNICH".
The obverse of the Olympic Fire Variant. It reached a mintage of 19.5 million coins.
Olympic Fire Variant
This coin shows the Olympic rings along with fire and emblem. The obverse shows a curved eagle design.
The athlete variant was also minted 19.5 million times.
Athletes Variant
On this variant, they choose to display a male and female athlete.
Aside from these three variants, there's one showing the Olympic grounds in Munich, and a second one with an abstract Olympic ring design. But I own neither of these designs.
Edge
The edge on each coin shows the inscription "CITIUS ALTIUS FORTIUS", Latin for "FASTER HIGHER STRONGER". Arabesques separate each word. Only the sun variant uses stylized Olympic rings. Very frequently letters of this inscription are damaged or misprinted. J instead of U for example. Broken dies were at fault here.
This series is also the first where a lot of collectors tried to get all mintmarks. D, F, G and J. The German mints tried to convince collectors in previous years without avail. But they succeeded in 1972.
Alright, that was our small look at the commemorative coins of the German summer Olympics 1972. I hope you liked it.
Elly is dreaming about dragons at the Olympics.
What do you think dragons would do at the Olympics?