North German thaler

The North German thaler was a currency used by several states of Northern Germany from 1690 to 1873, first under the Holy Roman Empire, then by the German Confederation. Originally equal to the Reichsthaler specie or silver coin from 1566 until the Kipper und Wipper crisis of 1618, a thaler currency unit worth less than the Reichsthaler specie was first defined in 1667 and became widely used after adoption of the Leipzig currency standard of 1690.

After the 1840s, the different North German states made their thalers equal in value to the Prussian thaler; these thalers were then made par to the Vereinsthaler in 1857. The various North German thalers and vereinsthalers were all replaced in 1873 by the German gold mark at the rate of 3 marks per thaler.^[1]

Several old books confusingly use the same term Reichsthaler for the specie silver coin as well as the currency unit. This is disambiguated by referring to the full-valued coin as the Reichsthaler specie and the lower-valued currency unit as the Reichsthaler currency (courant, kurant).

^ William Arthur Shaw (1896). The History of Currency, 1252–1894: Being an Account of the Gold and Silver Moneys and Monetary Standards of Europe and America, Together with an Examination of the Effects of Currency and Exchange Phenomena on Commercial and National Progress and Well-being. Putnam. pp. 360–393. Retrieved 22 June 2021.

[MAIN-1] William Arthur Shaw (1896). The History of Currency, 1252–1894: Being an Account of the Gold and Silver Moneys and Monetary Standards of Europe and America, Together with an Examination of the Effects of Currency and Exchange Phenomena on Commercial and National Progress and Well-being. Putnam. pp. 360–393. Retrieved 22 June 2021.

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