Soaring silver price forces Germany to destroy and re-mint collector coins
The metal value briefly exceeded the 20- and 25-euro face values. Coins honoring Wuppertal's suspended railway and the Three Kings are being reissued at 35 and 50 euros, at a cost of nearly 1.4 million euros.
Symbolic image · Photo: Nightflyer / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
A sharp rise in the price of silver forced the German government to destroy two collector coins before their release and mint them again. That is according to a letter from the Federal Finance Ministry to Greens budget lawmaker Sebastian Schäfer, seen by the German Press Agency; Der Spiegel first reported the story. The coins affected are “125 Years of the Wuppertal Suspension Railway” and “The Three Kings.”
Because silver prices rose strongly in 2025, the metal value of the coins at times exceeded their face values of 20 and 25 euros, so they could not be issued as planned. The re-minted coins are being issued much later, with less silver and higher face values of 35 and 50 euros.
Schäfer put the cost of the scrapped issue at nearly 1.4 million euros. Taxpayers' money had been “literally and negligently shredded,” the Greens lawmaker said. Despite the difficulties, the ministry expects an overall coin profit for the federal budget “in the upper single-digit millions.”