Today’s entry in Gus’ Gear is going in a different direction, today I will present some of the currencies used by the soldiers and people in the combat zones. I have been trying to get a good grasp on what soldiers of each country would have been paid on a monthly basis and the approximate conversion to current values. It is difficult to come up with a solid conversion over time. Frank Buchholz used the value of real estate for his conversion, I have always used the hourly or monthly wage. Both have problems as real estate and buildings have very different standards of construction and development and wages do not take into consideration the additional compensation in benefits such as retirement and health care as well as vacation and sick days, but they both do give some ability to compare what was paid then to what is paid now.
The artwork of the printed currency conveys much more history than coins and even show a change in the public’s mood. It should also be noted that this presentation is just a small representation of the monies used during the time and collecting the currencies of any single country can be an all consuming endeavor. It is possible to accumulate a reasonable set of examples without breaking the bank, but you should be warned that the compulsive collector often has difficulty drawing the line at reasonable. If anyone is interested in obtaining bank notes to fit in their collections, I would strongly recommend ATSnotes.com, Anna and Tom have been friends for a long time and when I need a specific note, they can usually find it, if they do not already have it in stock.
Germany issued currency in the territories that they occupied, shown at the top a 2 Frank note for use in occupied Luxemburg. This note gives the exchange rate between the German Mark and the Luxemburg Frank as 2 Frank=1 Mark 60 Pfennig. Below is a 1 Frank note with a value of 80 Pfennig. At the bottom are 10 and 5 Centimes coins. The 10 Centime coin is also minted in steel to conserve strategic metals.
Germany issued currency in the territories that they occupied, shown at the top a 2 Frank note for use in occupied Luxemburg. This note gives the exchange rate between the German Mark and the Luxemburg Frank as 2 Frank=1 Mark 60 Pfennig. Below is a 1 Frank note with a value of 80 Pfennig. At the bottom are 10 and 5 Centimes coins. The 10 Centime coin is also minted in steel to conserve strategic metals.
Germany issued currency in occupied Belgium. The 5 Frank note at the upper left is a Belgian issue, but the other 5 Frank note and the 2 and 1 Frank notes were issued by Germany. The coin at the upper left is a German wartime issue of the 25 Centime coin made of steel, the others are 10 and 25 Centime coins that were issued by Belgium before the occupation.
Germany issued currency to be used in occupied areas of Russia, these notes were issued in Posen (what is now Poznan, Poland) and were in Rubel and Kopeken.
These notes were issued from Kovno (what is now Kaunas, Lithuania) in Mark and Pfennig.
Germany issued currency for use in POW camps. These examples range from 2 Pfennig to 5 Mark, the note second from the top on the right was issued in the camp at Holzminden. Holzminden is of special interest as it was the camp where the first “Great Escape” took place. The experiences of the escapees were compiled in the book “The Tunnelers of Holzminden” by H G Durnford after the war and it was used to train British aircrews in the methods of escape and resulted in another “Great Escape” in WWII that was nearly identical to the one in WWI. Not all camps issued their own currency, some allowed the use of the standard German Mark in camp, but this made it easier for escapees to acquire money to aid in flight if they should escape.
Germany issued currency in their colonies. These notes were issued in Germany’s East African colony (Tanganyika) in 1915.
Germany printed banknotes for their ally, Bulgaria. Shown are the 5, 2 and 1 Leva notes, the coins at the bottom are 10 and 5 Stotinka. 100 Stotinka is equal to 1 Leva.
Germany issued banknotes for occupied territory in Romania, the 1 Leu, 50 and 25 Bani notes are on the left, the 5 Lei note at the bottom right is also German issue, they state that they are covered by funds in the Bank of Imperial Germany. The 2 Lei and 1 Leu notes at the upper right were issued by Romania in the unoccupied areas. The coins are 1 Leu and 50 Bani and were minted before Romania entered the war on the Allied side in 1916.
The Austro-Hungarian bank notes were printed in German on one side and Hungarian on the other, with denominations in eight other languages used by different nationalities in the Empire. A common soldier in the K.u.K. Service was paid 16 Heller per day (Glenn Jewison & Jörg C. Steiner, “Austro-Hungarian Land Forces 1848-1918 Geldgebühren im Kriege”), or 4 Kronen 80 Heller per month. The Austro-Hungarian Krone was valued at 85 German Pfennig, giving the Soldat just over 4 German Mark per month, or about $135 in current US$. These notes were issued in1912 and 1916. All of these notes will also be encountered with a “Deutschöstereich” overprint and are post war issues and were not used during the Great War. The coins at the right are a 1 Heller coin, two 2 Heller coins, one of copper and one of steel. Two 10 Heller coins, (one the left the Austrian and on the right the Hungarian) to show the difference between the Austrian and the Hungarian coin. The Austrian coin has a double eagle on the back and the Hungarian has the Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen and the Hungarian coins are Fillėr in denomination rather than Heller. The next two 20 Heller coins are made of steel to conserve strategic metals for the war effort. The one on the left is Austrian and the one on the right is Hungarian and is 20 Fillėr. The last two coins are a prewar 20 Heller coin on the left and a 1 Krone coin made of silver.
Austria issued POW script to made it more difficult for prisoners of war to accumulate money to use in an escape attempt. Shown here are examples for Kleimünchen, Grödig and Braunau.
The Ottoman Empire was an important part of the Central Powers, the notes show here are from 1916, the top is a 5 Piastres, the center is a 2 ½ Piastres and the bottom is 1 Pound. The 2 ½ Piastres note is of interest as it has an engraving of the Dardanelles on the reverse.
The Russian soldier was one of the poorest paid soldiers during the Great War, finding information on what they were paid exactly is difficult, but one source gives the figure to be the equivalent of $.32 US per month in 1914 (Daniel David, “The 1914 Campaign, August-October, 1914” page 15). This comes out to about 1s/4d in British currency, to convert this to a Russian value I have used the exchange given by Florence Farmborough (Florence Farmborough, “With the Armies of the Tsar, a Nurse at the Russian Front 1914-1918” page 319) where she gives an exchange of 50 rubles to 5£ making a ruble equal to 2 Shillings or 24d which gives an approximate value of 1s/4d at 67 Kopek. It would take three days pay to buy an egg on this pay (Florence Farmborough, “With the Armies of the Tsar, a Nurse at the Russian Front 1914-1918” page 181). The top notes are the front and back of the 50 ruble note, this was a months pay for a Red Cross Sister at the front in September of 1917 (Florence Farmborough, “With the Armies of the Tsar, a Nurse at the Russian Front 1914-1918” page 319). Below that is the 25, 10 and 5 Ruble notes and at the lower left is the 3 Ruble above the 1 Ruble notes. In the lower right are two different 50 Kopek notes as well as the 5, 3, 2 and 1 Kopek notes, these are the bank notes that a soldier would be most likely to have in his possession. The coins, from the top are two 20 Kopek, two 10 Kopek, a 5 Kopek, a 3 Kopek and two 2 Kopek, if you omit that last two coins, the rest represent a months pay for a Russian soldier at the front.
I have found no information on the amount the Italian soldier was paid, shown are 10, 5 and 1 Lira notes issued in 1914 and a 50, 10, and 5 Centesimi notes from 1918.
The soldiers of the United Kingdom earned a “shilling a day, blooming good pay!” from a recruiting poster of the time, (Daniel David, “The 1914 Campaign, August-October, 1914” page 15). This amounted to 1£/10s per month, or about $9 US dollars of the time. Few common soldiers would see a 1£ note as it would be as difficult to spend as a $500 bill would be now. The 10£ note shown at the top was issued after the war, but is of the same design as used during WWI, this example is of interest as it is a counterfeit printed in a nazi concentration camp to try to destabilize the British economy during the following war. Below it is a 1£ note and a 10 shilling note from 1917. Starting at the bottom of the coins there is a half-crown (2 shillings and 6 pence), a florin (two shillings), six pence, one penny and a half penny.
The soldiers of the United Kingdom earned a “shilling a day, blooming good pay!” from a recruiting poster of the time, (Daniel David, “The 1914 Campaign, August-October, 1914” page 15). This amounted to 1£/10s per month, or about $9 US dollars of the time. Few common soldiers would see a 1£ note as it would be as difficult to spend as a $500 bill would be now. The 10£ note shown at the top was issued after the war, but is of the same design as used during WWI, this example is of interest as it is a counterfeit printed in a nazi concentration camp to try to destabilize the British economy during the following war. Below it is a 1£ note and a 10 shilling note from 1917. Starting at the bottom of the coins there is a half-crown (2 shillings and 6 pence), a florin (two shillings), six pence, one penny and a half penny.
Japan was also a major player in the Great War. It was Japan who defeated Germany in China and nearly a quarter million Japanese soldiers accompanied the United States in the invasion of Russia in 1918. Shown here are 1 Yen and 5 Yen notes from 1916.
Serbia can not be left out of this discussion as that was where the war began in earnest. On the right are Serbian notes, the 20 and 10 Dinara notes, issued in 1914, the 5 Dinara note was issued in 1917 and has a distinct French look to it as Serbia had been overrun by the Central Powers by that time and relied on the Allies for nearly everything they needed. The Montenegrin currency was interchangeable with the Serbian currency, so I include, on the left of the photo, bank notes from Montenegro 20, 10 and 2 Perpera, issued before the beginning of the Great War. The coin is a Montenegrin 20 Para coin.
Pictured here is some of the currency issued by the United States before and during the Great War. The American soldier in 1914 was paid $15 per month (Daniel David, “The 1914 Campaign, August-October, 1914” page 15), by 1918 pay was $20 per month. The notes on the left are Silver Certificates, the top is a series of 1891 with Martha Washington on the front. The two notes below are $1 and $5 Silver Certificates from the series of 1899. The center notes are United States Notes and are backed with a promise rather than silver or gold that is on deposit in a Federal bank. They are from the top; $1 and $2 from the series of 1917, $5 from the series of 1907 and $10 from the series of 1901. On the right are $1 and $2 National Currency notes from 1918 and below that are $5 and $10 Federal Reserve Notes of the series of 1914. The large sized notes were issued until the 1920s when they were replaced with a smaller sized bank notes that we are accustomed to now. These bank notes and coins are unique among all shown here as they still retain face value, although the collector value is far higher until you get into the larger denominations such as the $500 and $1,000 bills. The coins are, top row, a $20 Double Eagle, a $10 Eagle, $5 Half Eagle, $2½ and $1 coins. Second row from left to right, a Mercury dime, Seated Liberty dime, a Barber dime, Barber quarter, Barber half dollar and $1 Liberty. Bottom row are a 5¢ “V” Liberty nickle, a 5¢ Indian head nickle, and a 1¢ Indian head penny. The American 5¢ nickles had another use other than currency, they were just the right size to replace the soft plugs in the Ford Model T engines.