On the occasion of the sale of the Salton Collection, auction house Künker and Stack’s Bowers Galleries entrusted the historian Ursula Kampmann with the task of investigating the history of the Hamburger-Schlessinger dynasty of coin dealers. Her findings revolutionize what we know about the German coin trade. On 22 March 2022, the second part of the Lottie and Mark Salton Collection will be auctioned off by auction house Künker in Osnabrück. It contains spectacular coins that are all the more spectacular due to one fact: before he emigrated to the United States of America in 1946, Mark Salton bore the name Max Schlessinger. He was the son of Felix Schlessinger, who ran one of the most famous German coin shops in Berlin in the late 1920s. The Historical Sources Three documents that had hitherto been unknown to most scholars came to light during the investigation of the history of the Hamburger and Schlessinger families. These documents shed a completely new light on the fate of this dynasty of coin dealers. In addition, a fourth document was found that had not been thoroughly evaluated before: Four members of the family left their memoirs to posterity: · Adolph Hamburger (1841-1919), brother of the company founder Leo Hamburger the Elder (1836-1902) · Röschen Schlessinger (1844-1932), sister of Leo Hamburger the Younger, partner of the L. & L. Hamburger coin dealership (1846-1929), and mother of Felix Schlessinger (1879-1944) · Sophie Diamant (1880-1972), sister of Felix Schlessinger · Mark Salton resp. Max Schlessinger (1914-2005) Thanks to these memoirs, the history of the Hamburger-Schlessinger dynasty can be traced back to a court factor called Loeb Hamburger (1761-1835) who lived in the Hanau ghetto. Through the eyes of the family members we experience the emancipation of Jews under Napoleon, the turmoil of the revolution of 1848, the industrialization and the economic upswing of the mid-19th century, the First World War, the hyperinflation of 1923, the Nazis’ rise to power, the persecution and expulsion of Jews until we get to the new beginning in the United States. The Findings Thanks to the analysis of these sources, it was able to gain new insights into the German coin trade prior to the First World War: · For example, the Munich Oberndörffer bank was of utmost importance in the process of establishing the Frankfurt coin trade. · Jewish coin trade in Germany was closely connected due to family ties. Adolph E. Hess probably also promoted the success of his Frankfurt coin dealership by means of a marital connection with a member of the Hamburger family. · Felix Schlessinger was brought into the L. & L. Hamburger coin shop as an heir by his uncle Leo Hamburger the Younger because the only son of the company owner had committed suicide. · The notorious Frankfurt Consortium had not been founded for the sake of making profit, its purpose was to prevent the financial ruin of the coin dealerships involved in it. · Felix Schlessinger founded a new coin shop in Berlin because the L. & L. Hamburger company was virtually bankrupt after the period of hyperinflation. · The actor Heinz Rühmann collected Greek coins of the finest quality and had himself represented at auctions by the Munich art dealer Otto Bernheimer. Added to these fundamental pieces of information, the memoirs provide us with true-to-life scenes of the coin trade that clarify our picture of past auction sales. The well-known historian and numismatist Dr Ursula Kampmann, who has been studying the history of the coin trade for many years, has written an extensive text on the history of the Hamburger-Schlessinger coin dealer dynasty. It is part of a brochure published by Künker in German and English.

Today, most money is credit money, created by commercial banks. While credit can finance innovation, excessive credit can lead to boom/bust cycles, such as the recent financial crisis. This highlights how the organization of our monetary system is crucial to stability. One way to achieve this is by separating the unit of account from the medium of exchange and in pre-modern Europe, such a separation existed. This new volume examines this idea of monetary separation and this history of monetary arrangements in the North and Baltic Seas region, from the Hanseatic League onwards. This book provides a theoretical analysis of four historical cases in the Baltic and North Seas region, with a view to examining evolution of monetary arrangements from a new monetary economics perspective. Since the objective exhange value of money (its purchasing power), reflects subjective individual valuations of commodities, the author assesses these historical cases by means of exchange rates. Using theories from new monetary economics , the book explores how the units of account and their media of exchange evolved as social conventions, and offers new insight into the separation between the two. Through this exploration, it puts forward that money is a social institution, a clearing device for the settlement of accounts, and so the value of money, or a separate unit of account, ultimately results from the size of its network of users. The History of Money and Monetary Arrangements offers a highly original new insight into monetary arrangments as an evolutionary process. It will be of great interest to an international audience of scholars and students, including those with an interest in economic history, evolutionary economics and new monetary economics.

An encyclopedia covering the political, social, intellectual, religious and cultural history of the German- and Dutch-speaking medieval world, between 500 and 1500. Entries cover individuals and their deeds as well as broader historical topics.

First published in 2001, Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive guide to the German and Dutch-speaking world in the Middle Ages, from approximately C.E. 500 to 1500. It offers detailed accounts of a wide variety of aspects of medieval Germany, including language, literature, architecture, politics, warfare, medicine, philosophy and religion. In addition, this reference work includes bibliographies and citations to aid further study. This A-Z encyclopedia, featuring over 500 entries written by expert contributors, will be of key interest to students and scholars, as well as general readers.