6.31 billion euros: That's how much the outstanding D-Mark notes and coins are worth today, according to Bundesbank statistics.

The clichéd storage place for old bills would be under Grandpa's mattress.

Or maybe between the pages of a novel of great literary and physical weight that you saw on your parents' shelf under a big layer of dust and that you will definitely read if it weren't for the next blockbuster series on Netflix.

In the meantime, however, there is probably less to be found in these hiding places than you might think.

After 20 years of the euro, the value of the outstanding coins and notes has shrunk to 12.35 billion Deutschmarks.

As of December 31, 2021, 5.75 billion of these were banknotes and 6.6 billion were coins.

Gregory Bruner

Editor in Business.

  • Follow I follow

The Bundesbank expects that most of the D-Mark cash still outstanding today will have been forgotten by now.

In fact, many Deutsche Mark submissions to the Bundesbank – which can currently only be done by post because the Bundesbank’s branches are closed due to the pandemic – come from inheritances.

Buried in the garden, stowed in drainpipes and sewn into curtains, the forgotten treasures and emergency nails are found by heirs by chance.

In addition to permanently lost or destroyed Deutschmarks - which are not recorded in the statistics - the Bundesbank suspects that a considerable part of the old money is abroad.

"In Eastern Europe, the D-Mark was very popular as a means of payment and a store of value because of its stable value," explains Johannes Beermann, who is responsible for cash on the Bundesbank Board of Management.

The rate of the submitted D-Mark decreases more and more.

At the end of November 2007, just over $7 billion in bills remained in the wild.

The 6 billion mark was undercut almost nine years later.

Within the past six years, only 250 million went back to Frankfurt or initially to Mainz.

There, the Bundesbank checks the authenticity of the handed over cash in its analysis center.

Finders of D-Mark coins apparently feel little urgency to hand them over.

At around 9.4 billion Deutschmarks in the form of coins, compared to around 41 billion in banknotes at the start of the Bundesbank's records in January 2002, there were considerably fewer outstanding.

However, the population has only decreased by less than 3 billion in 20 years.

New money from old money

If you look for these coins, often special coins, on the eBay auction platform, only a few sellers ask for more than ten euros.

While that's still a little more than double their exchange value, shipping and website fees often add up.

Slightly more can be achieved for banknotes.

"Smaller denominations tend to be less rare: there are still over 41 million of the third series of 10 D-Mark banknotes in circulation," says Beermann.

With 369,000 pieces, the rarity of the 1,000 D-Mark notes from the BBk I series is much greater.

Prices from 530 euros are called for them.

This series is the first printed by the Deutsche Bundesbank, founded in 1957.

However, it does not mark the beginning of the Deutsche Mark.

Its history began with the currency reform in 1948. At that time, the predecessor institution of the Deutsche Bundesbank issued a first series that was still printed in America and whose design was strongly based on the dollar.

If you look for their 100 denomination bill, you will find prices starting at 1100 euros and going up to over 2000 euros.