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Leftovers from the old days: D-Mark and Pfennig
Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / dpa
Almost 21 years after the introduction of euro cash, citizens are still hoarding immense sums of money in the old currency, the D-Mark.
According to the Deutsche Bundesbank, the total value of the stocks that had not yet been exchanged at the end of November was just under 12.3 billion marks (about 6.29 billion euros), of which 6.6 billion marks were coins.
A total of more than 49 million Deutschmarks had been exchanged for euros in the current year by the end of November.
This is the first time since 2018 that the switching volume has increased year-on-year.
Even the German garden gnome turns out to be a cherished hiding place for money.
For example, an heir recently found D-Mark coins in the clay gardeners, which he exchanged for euros at the Bundesbank.
Again and again, old D-Mark holdings turn up by chance, as in this case.
The garden gnome heir found 222 D-Mark coins in the gnomes while cleaning out his cellar in the house he had inherited from his father, but in total only 51 D-Marks, which earned him a good 26 euros from the Bundesbank.
A much more lucrative discovery was made by a couple clearing out their warehouse at the family business that was about to be sold.
The employees in the Bundesbank branch were only startled when the husband explained when handing in the money that he had personally tampered with a safe with a crowbar.
The long-forgotten safe, which came from his father's estate, contained 637,000 marks (almost 326,000 euros).
Sometimes banknotes are collected - sometimes simply forgotten
Bundesbank board member Johannes Beermann attributes the sharp increase in change requests this year primarily to the fact that during the corona pandemic in 2021 it was more difficult to exchange D-Marks due to the temporarily limited range of services offered by the Bundesbank branches.
Accordingly, stocks could have accumulated over the past two years that have now been exchanged for euros.
"Germany is one of six countries in the euro zone that exchange both national banknotes and national coins indefinitely." The exchange rate has not changed: you can get one euro for 1.95583 Deutschmarks.
Even if some DM were kept for reasons of nostalgia or as collector's items, "it is much more common that many citizens do not even know what treasure they are actually sitting on," according to the Bundesbank.
»Old DMs are often forgotten or lost and only reappear years later.«
However, some people kept banknotes "as a reminder of the days of the D-Mark," says Beermann.
However, this is not good for at least one man.
The D-Mark nostalgic regularly counted his old banknotes on a table.
This year he was disturbed by a ringing at his front door, as he reported.
The man pushed the bills between the sheets of a newspaper so that they weren't lying around in the open and went to the door.
As usual, his wife took the newspaper to light the stove.
When the man came back, he tried to save as much as possible.
Apart from ten bills totaling 360 marks, all the other banknotes were burned.
kig/dpa
