Hammerich who then was deputy assayer of the Berlin Mint mentions that the 1902-pfennig was struck in 1903. He of course had access to the people responsible for the archives at the other Mints, which makes him quiet reliable, but of course not free of any errors.villa66 hat geschrieben:I note that the 1902j 1-pfennig is said to have been struck in 1903, but I note the Wikipedia article says the Denkmal's cornerstone was laid 3 Jun 1902. Since the cornerstone is typically the repository for a structure's celebratory artifacts....I thought maybe (if both dates are correct) that the coin set might have been interred below the Munzen allegory.
The observation above regarding the apparently absent 2-pfennig seems sound. The absence of a 20-pfennig, too. The 50-pfennig I wonder about. Was it known in 1902/03 that the 50-pfennig was a dead duck, and a 1/2-mark would soon debut? Or was a 1900j 50-pfennig good enough? Might have been a tougher coin to get dated 1902, unlike the 1-pfennig, for which the proper tools would have been relatively easy to come up with.
But is it even known in the German coin hobby what the make-up of the set were? (Or perhapsere some portion of the Hamburg mint's records destroyed in '43?)
Since the allegory celebrates the new Empire-wide coinage, is it possible that only smaller, non-state/city-specific coins were employed?
But surely local pride would have put the bigger coins into the cornerstone(?) as well. Certainly the size of that coin in the statue's hand suggests as much.
Yikes. The time.
v.
I agree that putting a cornerstone- artifacte into the cornerstone one year after sounds odd- or perhaps means that nothing really happend on the construction- site, wich does not sound likely. The Denkmal seemed to be fell financed with a total budget of 1.000.000 Mark.
The Act of replacing the 50 pfennig with a 1/2 mark was not passed before october, 6 in 1904, so legally it would have been possible to strike a 1902 J- 50 pfennig.
I can not recall have read anything about the denkmal or the coins put into the cornerstone. It could very well be that the remark in Hammerich, cited by Jaeger is the only source mentioning those coins at all.