10 1⁄2 thalers (= 31 marks 8 schillingen, Hamburger courant). She, however, hesitated to follow the German system in its change over to the Leipzig standard in 1690, and after an interim period of weltering disorder, during which the standard varied from 30 marks to 34 marks 8 schillingen per mark fine of silver, the State adopted in 1725 the so-called Lübeck standard (1 mark fine = 34 marks), as the Hamburger courant.
This standard had existed in Holstein from 1693. In 1788 and 1789 long and serious debates were held in Hamburg on the question of the substitution of a lighter (or lower) standard. And seventy years later a change in such direction had practically effected itself, although not legislatively recognised. By 1850 the actual currency of the state consisted mostly of silver coins of the Prussian (or 14-thaler) standard, circulating at an equivalence of 1 thaler = 2 1⁄2 marks Hamburger courant (= 40 schillingen), an equivalence implying a standard of 35 marks courant to the mark of fine silver.
Legally, however, the 34-marks standard remained in force until the coalescence of the free state of Hamburg with the new imperial German system in our own days.
The question of the agio of the Hamburg banco system belongs rather to the history of banking.
German Standards: Silver.
In brief résumé, the historic standards of the German monetary system have been as follows:—Nos. 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13 representing the systems in existence at the time of the projection of the great currency reform of 1871:—
1. Old imperial standard of 1559, based on the Reichs Münz ordnung of Ferdinand I., mark of fine silver = 8 thalers. Altered in 1622, so that 9 thalers 2 grs. = 1 mark fine silver.
2. The Zinnaische standard, agreed upon by Saxony and Brandenburg at Zinna, 1667, 1 mark fine silver = 10 1⁄2 thaler = 15 3⁄4 guldens.
3. Leipzig standard or Torgau standard (see text, p. [200]), mark fine silver = 18 gulden.