Pfennigs

The 'pfennig' (; . 'pfennigs' or ; symbol pf or ₰) or penny is a former German coin or note, which was the official currency from the 9th century until the introduction of the euro in 2002. While a valuable coin during the Middle Ages, it lost its value through the years and was the minor coin of the Mark currencies in the German Reich, West and East Germany, and the reunified Germany until the introduction of the euro. Pfennig was also the name of the subunit of the Danzig mark (1922–1923) and the Danzig gulden (1923–1939) in the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland).

Overview

Name

The word ''Pfennig'' (replacing the ''denarius'' or ''denarius'' as a low-denomination silver coin) can be traced back to the 8th century and also became known as the ''Penning'', ''Panni(n)g '', ''Pfenni(n)c'', ''Pfending'' and by other names, e.g. in Prussia until 1873, ''Pfenning''. The ''-ing''- or ''-inc'' suffix was used, in addition to ''-ung'', the formation of affiliation substantives and also appears in other coin denominations, for example in the ''schilling''. Beyond that, its origin has not been clarified, but an early borrowing from the Latin ''pondus'' ("weight", cf. pound) is possible. According to an 1848 Leipzig trade lexicon the name pfennig was "originally the general name of ''every'' coin in Germany, which is supposed to be derived from the hollow coins or bracteatess, because these had the shape of a ''pan''" (i.e. they were bent)."

The word ''Pfennig'' is etymologically related to the English penny, the Swedish penning, which was also model for the Finnish penni (1860–2001), the Estonian penn (1918–1927), the Polish fenig (1917–1918), the Lithuanian word for money ''pinigai'' and the pfenig (fening) of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1998–today).

Related currencies

The pfennig was the progenitor of a whole series of later coin denominations, which became parts or multiples of the later pfennig. These include the ''groschen'' ("big fennig, from the Latin ''grossus'' "big, thick" ), ''Angster'' ("narrow fennig, from the Latin ''angustus'' "narrow, thin"), ''Albus'' ("white fennig, from the Latin ''albus'' "white"; initially equivalent to a ''Groschen''), '' Witte'' ("white fennig), ''Rappen'' ("pfennig with a raven"), '' Stäbler ("pfennig with the Basle staff"), '' Heller'' ("Haller fennig), ''Schwaren'' ("heavy fennig) etc.

There were also "light pfennigs" (''leichte Pfennige''), "good pfennigs" (''gute Pfennige'') or "custom pfennigs" (''Zollpfennige''), which had this name on the coin. Some types of pfennig were given special names in the vernacular, such as the Erfurt "coffin pfennig" (''Sargpfennig'').

Sign

As a currency sign a variation of the minuscule letter ‘d’ for ‘denarius’ in German Kurrent script was modified so the terminal end of the minuscule Kurrent ‘d’, that trailed at the top of the ascender in an anticlockwise loop, was instead brought down behind the right of the ascender, to form a descender, that hooked clockwise, thus making it a distinct symbol, different from any of the other Kurrent letters in its own right: ₰; compare with the minuscule Kurrent ‘d’ given in the archetypal example of Kurrent script found in the upper right of the article on Kurrent.

The pfennig symbol has nearly fallen out of use since the 1950s, with the demise and eventual abolition of the Reichsmark with its ''Reichspfennig'', as well as the abolition of Kurrent by the Nazis on 3 January 1941, thus making it increasingly cryptic as familiarity with Kurrent script has decreased since that time. The symbol is encoded in Unicode at .

History

Middle Ages

Charlemagne established, in the so-called '' Carolingian coin standard'', that from a Carolingian ''Pfund'' ("pound") of silver, 240 coins were to be minted (corresponding to about 1 .7 g of silver per coin). The coin was called in the Latin language of the time, a ''denarius'' after the old Roman coin (see Sachsenpfennig – Coin standard). From this coin evolved later the French denier and the Italian ''denaro''. The Arabic word ''dinar'' (دينار) can also be traced back to the Latin word ''denarius''. In the Old High German language, the ''denarius'' was already called the pfennig (“phenninc”) at the time of Charlemagne. In North German and Dutch-speaking countries it was later called a ''Penning'' and in England the penny. The term ''paenig'' for the Roman ''denarius'' first appeared in England around 765, when King Offa had ''denarii'' struck out of silver based on the Carolingian model. This explains the abbreviation "d" as in denarius, which was used for the "old" penny in Great Britain until 1971. The early pfennigs weighed around 1.3g to 2g, its weight tending to steadily decrease over the centuries. The widespread fluctuations in the weight of the same pfennigs were partly due to the manufacturing process, with the heavier pfennig specimens being sought out by private individuals in accordance with Gresham's Law. At that time and even partly up to modern times, it was the total weight of a certain number of similar pfennigs that had to be right for larger payments, a practice that tended to promote deviating exchange rates between smaller and larger coin denominations and which found its climax in the Kipper and Wipper era

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