One mark of East Germany
1979 ・ aluminium ・ 20th century ・ German Democratic Republic (Berlin mint)
The one mark of the German Democratic Republic, cut with the state arms of hammer and compasses. A coin of aluminium, light as a feather. The eastern mark, born to answer the currency reform in the west, stood for more than forty years afterward alongside the western D-mark as two currencies bearing the same name. Officially one to one. But the black-market rate stood far apart, and for people in the east the D-mark became the byword for real money. In 1990, with the currency union of east and west — an exchange at one to one decided by politics — this coin closed its history.