What is the exchange rate for the 1922 German mark and the 2013 us dollar?

Answer 1

Exchange rate implies using the money at face value as spendable cash.

1 German mark is currently worth around $0.62 (or 62 cents) USD (United States Dollars) in 2013.

That is all you would be given if you could exchange the currency at face value for modern money in 2013.

It should be noted however that this currency can no longer be exchanged. Marks from this era were issued by the Weimar Republic and are no longer honored at face value.

However; there are two other ways to examine the value:

Historically:

If you wanted to cross examine the inflation rates of the two time periods you would first need to translate the inflation rates of the time period and understand what was going on.

Germany lost WWI in 1918. The treaty of Versailles damned Germany in 1919 to pay a lot of reparations to the nations that won the war. Germany struggled with repayment and instead began mass printing money with no value backing it's currency.

Starting in 1920 1 USD was worth 50 marks (or 1 mark was worth $0.02); but by the end of 1923 the situation was so far gone that 1 USD was worth 4,200,000,000,000 marks.

Specifically for the time period of 1922 1 USD was worth 190 marks at the start of the year, but was worth 9000 marks by the end of the year.

So if you were exchanging German marks at the end of 1922 you would have needed 9000 marks for 1 USD, modern inflation comparisons of a 1922 USD to a 2013 USD is around $13.70 (or $1 of 2013 USD is worth $0.07 in 1922)

At that inflation rate, exchanging 1922 marks into 2013 USD you would need 18,000 marks to get $0.0152 or roughly 27,000 marks (in 1922) to get $1 (in 2013 USD)

However, that is purely a historical comparison of inflation rates, exchanges are done based on current year to current year values. In this comparison alone, adding just one additional year and you would require millions of 1923 marks to obtain even a single USD.

Collectable:

Money from this time period is often considered collectable and as such it is not exchanged at face value; but rather sold purely on the merits of it's rarity and condition for exhibit.

Due to the known inflation of the time period, even the face value of the German mark is of little consequence (tons of marks were printed with face values ranging from 1 mark up to millions of marks). So marks are typically graded by collectors purely on condition and presentation value and not on face value.

A poor condition mark may be worth as little as $1 (if its in truly bad condition it is just trash and worth nothing).

Average condition marks from this era have an average price range between $4 and $25. These are typically graded as circulated with a range of condition from fine to near mint. Prices may fluctuate for especially well preserved or framed examples.

Exceptionally pristine or mint condition uncirculated marks may be worth considerably more than $25 to the right collector.