20 Mark - Wilhelm II

In 1871 the new German Empire built a single currency on gold. The mark replaced a patchwork of thalers and gulden, and the 20 mark gold piece became the workhorse high-value coin — the note you could bite. Each of the empire's states struck its own version with its own ruler's portrait, but they all shared one weight, one fineness, and one imperial eagle on the back. Prussia, by far the largest state, struck the most.

The Prussian 20 mark under Kaiser Wilhelm II covers his whole reign as it began — from his accession in 1888 through 1915. Wilhelm came to the throne in the "Year of Three Emperors," when his grandfather Wilhelm I and his father Friedrich III both died within months. The young, restless Kaiser who followed would push Germany toward the naval race and the alliances that ended in war.

That ending is what makes the coin poignant. Imperial gold circulated freely right up to August 1914. When the war began, Germany suspended gold convertibility, and coins like this were hoarded, called in, and eventually melted to fund the fighting. Paper replaced gold in daily use and never gave it back. The empire itself was gone by 1918.

The obverse — the "heads" side — shows Wilhelm II facing right, ringed by the legend WILHELM II DEUTSCHER KAISER KÖNIG V. PREUSSEN ("Wilhelm II, German Emperor, King of Prussia"). The reverse carries the crowned imperial eagle, the words DEUTSCHES REICH, the date, and 20 MARK. Around the edge runs the old Prussian motto GOTT MIT UNS — "God with us." A mint mark under the eagle or the bust tells you where it was struck: A for Berlin, J for Hamburg.

The type is not quite one design but three, and collectors read them closely:

• 1888-1889: the first issue, a bare-headed young Wilhelm paired with the older small eagle over a large Hohenzollern shield.
• 1890-1913: the same bare-headed portrait, now with a redesigned large imperial eagle — a reverse credited to the Berlin engraver Otto Schultz.
• 1913-1915: a new uniformed military bust, Wilhelm in a general's collar. Struck only at Berlin and only for about three years, it is the type most collectors chase.

Because every German state issued its own 20 mark, the series is a portrait gallery of imperial Germany. The Prussian piece is the most common thread, which makes it the natural entry point — and the uniformed late type the natural prize.

Two things pull collectors to this coin. First, it is bullion with a history: nearly a quarter-ounce of gold in a piece that actually changed hands in Wilhelmine Germany, priced today largely on its metal but carrying a story money rarely does. Second, it rewards a closer look. The three portrait-and-eagle combinations, the two mints, and the individual dates turn a "common" gold coin into a small collecting puzzle — the Hamburg (J) strikes of the 1890-1913 type and the short-lived 1913-1915 uniformed bust are the pieces specialists watch for.

As with all gold of this kind, condition drives premium. Most survivors are circulated or lightly handled; genuinely high-grade, sharply struck examples are far scarcer than the raw mintages suggest, because so much of the coinage was melted. A collector should still verify the exact date, mint mark, and portrait type from good images before treating any one example as scarce — the type as a whole is common, the right variety in the right grade is not.