Vast, unclaimed sums keep mysteriously appearing in or from Germany, lately.
Gold bars, unclaimed ones, appear in a train station.
And now, half a billion German Reichsmarks appear in an organ, in Norway.
Any nottion of what they’d be worth today?
Vast, unclaimed sums keep mysteriously appearing in or from Germany, lately.
Gold bars, unclaimed ones, appear in a train station.
And now, half a billion German Reichsmarks appear in an organ, in Norway.
Any nottion of what they’d be worth today?
Probably worth very little. Post WW1-Germany went through a period of ridiculous hyper-inflation. Per Wiki, in the 1920s people were using 1M mark bills as notepaper and a 50M banknote issued in 1923 was worth $1 at the time. Within weeks it was worthless due to inflation.
I’d hazard a guess that an organ-maker who stuck a 500M note into a time capsule was burying something from the time when that would have bought you a loaf of bread.
In 1924, the mark was revalued at 1 trillion to 1, so 500 million of the old marks would have been worth some fraction of a cent (exchange rate was roughly 4 trillion to 1 USD.) This is certainly the case given the context.
In 1930 when the money was hidden, the exchange rate for the new currency was about 4 to 1 USD, so 500 million would be an unimaginable fortune. Not sure what $125 million in 1930 dollars would be today.
I remember reading somewhere that intact US dollars of any era are legal tender in perpetuity. Would Reichmarks even be honored today? The government(s) that issued them no longer exist(s)!
Rule of thumb, at least ten times more. At least!