Gold marks

German Goldmark
Mark (in German)
German 20 mark banknote from 1914
Denominations
Subunit
1/100	Pfennig
Plural	Mark
Pfennig	Pfennig
Symbol	ℳ
Pfennig	₰
Banknotes	5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 1000 Mark
Coins	1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 25, 50 Pfennig 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20 Mark
Demographics
User(s)	German Empire
Issuance
Central bank	Reichsbank
This infobox shows the latest status before this currency was rendered obsolete.

The Goldmark ( pronunciation ; officially just Mark, sign: ℳ) was the currency used in the German Empire from 1873 to 1914. The Papiermark refers to the German currency from 4 August 1914 when the link between the Mark and gold was abandoned.

Before unification, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, though most were linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16⅔ grams of pure silver. Although the Mark was based on gold rather than silver, a fixed exchange rate between the Vereinsthaler and the Mark of 3 Mark = 1 Vereinsthaler was used for the conversion. Southern Germany had used the Gulden as the standard unit of account, which was worth  ⁴⁄₇ of a Vereinsthaler and, hence, became worth 1.71 (1+ ⁵⁄₇) Mark in the new currency. Bremen had used a gold based Thaler which was converted directly to the Mark at a rate of 1 gold Thaler = 3.32 (3+ ⁹⁄₂₈) Mark. Hamburg had used its own Mark prior to 1873. This was replaced by the Goldmark at a rate of 1 Hamburg Mark = 1.2 Goldmark.

From 1 January 1876 onwards, the Mark became the only legal tender. The name Goldmark was created later to distinguish it from the Papiermark (papermark) which suffered a serious loss of value through hyperinflation following World War I (see inflation in the Weimar Republic). The goldmark was on a gold standard with 2790 Mark equal to 1 kilogram of pure gold (1 Mark = 358 mg). From 1900 to 1933, the United States adhered to a gold standard as well, with the value of the dollar being fixed at a price of approximately one-twentieth ounce (troy weight) of gold (one troy ounce of gold was actually valued at US$20.67). The goldmark therefore had a value of approximately U.S. $0.25. The monetary hegemon of the time when the goldmark was in use, however, was the Pound Sterling, with £1 being valued at 20.43 goldmarks.