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GERMAN BANKER COUNTS 1.2M PFENNIG COINSNot all money is virtual. This article describes a German banker who personally counted over one million one and two pfennig coins as part of an estate deposit. -Editor
Dick Johnson writes: As a hobby a German truck driver collected German coins, but only two denominations, one and two pfennig. Not for numismatic purposes by vanities, but by quantity. Coins from circulation, as many as he could acquire. He died early 2017 and his estate found his “collection” of about 1.2 million coins. All previous to the transition to the euro in 2002. He had placed the coins in freezer bags, ending up with 5,500 pounds of coins. Since the coins had iron in their composition, some had rusted together. This prevented their counting by machines. The coins had to be counted by hand. One bank agreed to tackled the massive task. It took six months. The bank finished the chore this week. Final count 8,000 euros, $9,400. To read the complete article, see: The story was also sent along by David Pickup and David Sundman who forwarded a version from The Times. Thanks, everyone. -Editor
 A German bank worker has spent every working day for six months counting 2.5 tonnes of copper coins left by a lorry driver to his relatives. The family loaded the 1.2 million one and two pfennig coins — obsolete since 2002 when Germany adopted the euro — wrapped in hundreds of freezer bags, into a van and drove to a branch of the Bundesbank, the German central bank, in Oldenburg, northern Germany, after the man died in May. What followed was a monotonous, challenging summer and autumn for Wolfgang Kemereit, the official given the job of cleaning, sorting and counting the money. Each bag took him about an hour and he performed the task alongside his regular duties. “I held every coin in my hand,” Mr Kemereit told NDR, the broadcaster. “But I like doing things like that so it wasn’t a problem.” He added that it was not possible to count the money by machine because many of the coins were rusty and stuck together. His tally came to €8,000. The mark can be exchanged free of charge at any of the Bundesbank’s 35 branches at an exchange rate fixed at 1.96 marks to €1. Many Germans mourn the demise of the mark, symbol of their postwar economic miracle. They still hold 12.65 billion marks in piggy banks, drawers, under mattresses and down sofas. To read the complete article, see: Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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