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Note on Currencies and Other Abbreviations

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Note on Currencies and Other Abbreviations Note on Currencies and Other Abbreviations erman economic history is a very complicated subject, which Gthis author cannot claim to have fully mastered. Some of the complexities include the multiple currencies used by inhabitants of the myriad states of central Eu rope until the later nineteenth century (when these were at least stabilized, though not united), the chang- ing of units of exchange over time, and the very differ ent “real” value of coins, especially before 1815. Although an agreement was made in the mid-sixteenth century that all states of the Holy Roman Empire that issued reichstaler would maintain its silver content at 25.98 grams of silver,1 in practice these were often clipped or the silver or gold mixed with cheaper alloys. A taler being a relatively large coin, each state could also issue its own smaller coins, in amounts left to their own discretion, making for a proliferation of fractional currencies (the most common being the groschen and the pfennig; twelve pfennig were equal to one groschen, and twenty- four groschen made up the taler). Between 1754 and 1892, Austria de- nominated its currency in florins (F), often called gulden, whichwere further divided into one hundred heller; after 1892, the Austrian cur- rency became the krone, worth .5 of a florin. The schilling (S) was introduced in 1924 and divided into one hundred groschen; this gave way to the reichsmark after Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938 but was reinstated in 1945. Some of the southern states, such as Bavaria, traded in gulden (G). As the distinguished economic his- torians Hans- Jürgen Gerhard and Karl Heinrich Kaufhold noted on this subject: “Through the hands of wholesalers and retailers, of workers, shop keep ers, and women operating market stalls passed a xiv • Note on Currencies great quantity of completely dif fer ent and frequently changing coins from every pos si ble princely domain, the value of each changing from year to year.”2 This— plus enormous fluctuations in the price of the grains that fed, or failed to feed, most of the population— makes it very hard to estimate the “real” value of wages or prices for the eighteenth century in partic u lar, and what we have available for the porcelain industry are mostly nominal wages or prices, which might have meant quite dif fer ent things to the persons who earned or paid these at the time. In chapters 1–3 I have tried to introduce some figures simply to get a sense of the costs and values attached to partic - u lar occupations or items, but none of these is fully meaningful without closer analy sis of local currency values and food prices, and contrasts to later wage figures or commodity prices must be contextualized to ascertain their sig- nificance. I have converted figures given in florins or gulden to taler to make comparison easier. As we get to the modern period, this problem is less severe as the silver content of the reichstaler (T) stabilized, and this unit of currency began to be used in many northern German states. The southern states, including Aus- tria, however, continued to use florins (the name adapted from the Italians, who used it for their gold coins) or gulden, usually worth about two- thirds of a taler, but also varying from one another and in value over time. In cur- rency conventions established by the Zollverein (Customs Union) in the 1830s, the currencies were linked to a fixed amount of silver, such that 1 T was equivalent to .57 gulden. In 1857, the Austrian florin (F) was pegged at 1 T = .66 F.3 After Bismarck’s unification, the new German Empire created a single currency, the mark, to be used across all its states and valued at .33 of a taler; it was subdivided into one hundred pfenning. The mark survived the German Empire but not the great financial crisis of the early Weimar Re- public; in order to end the hyperinflation of 1922–23, the Weimar regime issued a new currency, the rentenmark (RtM), backed by a massive mort- gage on land. By the summer of 1924, sufficient stability had been achieved that a new, gold-backed reichsmark (RM) could be introduced (1 RtM = 1 RM). In 1948, the reichsmark was replaced in West Germany with the deutschmark (DM) and in the East with the ostmark (OM), which was not Note on Currencies • xv officially exchangeable into western currencies. When the bureaucrats of the German Demo cratic Republic estimated the value of the goods they ex- changed with the West, they did so in a fictional currency called the valutamark (VM), with the same value as the DM. In 2002, after a transitional period, the re united Germany gave up its deutschmark in favor of the euro at the rate of about 1.96 DM = 1 E; the Austrian schilling was exchanged for euros at the rate of 13.76 S = 1 E. For the reader’s assistance, here is a brief list of currency abbreviations and exchanges: DM deutschmark; introduced as West Germany’s currency in 1948 E euro; introduced at about 1.98 DM in 2002 F florin; used in Austria and some southern states; value set in 1857 at .66 = 1 T G gulden (guilder) used in some southern German states, value set in 1838 at .57 of a taler M mark; replaces the taler in 1873 at the rate of 3 M = 1 T OM ostmark; East German currency after 1948 RM reichsmark; introduced in 1924 to replace the rentenmark (RtM); indexed to the market price of gold S schilling; Austrian currency used between 1924 and 1938 and again 1945–2002 T reichstaler; set in 1566 at 25.98 grams of silver VM valutamark; fictional currency name used in the GDR to estimate value of sales or purchases from the West; equivalent to 1 DM The following abbreviations have been used for manufacturers: KGGM Königliche Gesundheitsgeschirr Manufaktur KPM Königliche Porzellanmanufaktur WPM Wiener Porzellan Manufaktur A list of archival abbreviations appears at the end of the bibliography. .
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