Rappen
Encyclopedia
Pfennig
The Pfennig , plural Pfennige, is an old German coin or note, which existed from the 9th century until the introduction of the euro in 2002....
("penny") common to the Alemannic German
Alemannic German
Alemannic is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family. It is spoken by approximately ten million people in six countries: Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, France and Italy...
regions Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, Sundgau
Sundgau
Sundgau is a geographical territory on the eastern edge of France that was once a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. The name Sundgau derives from Alemannic German, which means "South County" ....
and Northern Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. As with other German pennies, its half-piece was a Haller
Heller (money)
The Heller or Häller was originally a German coin valued at half a pfennig and named after the city of Hall am Kocher...
, the smallest piece which was struck.
Today, one-hundredth of a Swiss franc
Swiss franc
The franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein; it is also legal tender in the Italian exclave Campione d'Italia. Although not formally legal tender in the German exclave Büsingen , it is in wide daily use there...
is still officially called a Rappen in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Swiss German. In French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
speaking Switzerland, the modern Swiss coins are called centime and "centimes", in Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
speaking Switzerland, centesimo and "centesimi" respectively.
The origin of the term can be traced back to the Rappenpfennig, a form of the penny minted in Freiburg im Breisgau in the 13th century featuring an eagle, which later on was interpreted to depict a raven (German "Rabe"; the word is thus a cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
of its German homophone
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
"Rappen" referring to a "raven"-black horse). Due to the coin's wide circulation in the Upper Rhine
Upper Rhine
The Upper Rhine is the section of the Rhine in the Upper Rhine Plain between Basel, Switzerland and Bingen, Germany. The river is marked by Rhine-kilometers 170 to 529 ....
region, it was adopted as standard currency in the so-called Rappenbund ("Rappen federation"), a union of regional mints formed in 1399 that included the Bishop of Basel and most of the region's larger cities. After the dissolution of the Rappenbund in 1584, a number of Swiss states continued to mint rappen within their territories, where they remained in local use until the middle of the 19th century.
In 1798, when Switzerland was politically unified by the French under the Helvetic Republic
Helvetic Republic
In Swiss history, the Helvetic Republic represented an early attempt to impose a central authority over Switzerland, which until then consisted mainly of self-governing cantons united by a loose military alliance, and conquered territories such as Vaud...
, a unified currency was needed to standardise the widely differing currencies of the so-far sovereign Swiss states (up to then about 860 different coins had been used in Switzerland). A new Swiss Franc based on the Berne thaler
Berne thaler
The Thaler was the currency of the Swiss canton of Berne until 1798. It was subdivided into 40 Batzen, each of 4 Kreuzer. It was replaced by the Frank of the Helvetian Republic in 1798...
was introduced, in which 10 rappen made 1 batzen
Batzen
The batzen was a coin produced by Bern, Switzerland, from the 15th century until the mid-19th century. The batzen is named for the bear depicted on the batzen of Bern....
, ten of which in turn formed one franc. This unified coinage was struck for five years only, until the end of the Helvetic Republic in 1803. However, many of the newly-independent Cantons of Switzerland
Cantons of Switzerland
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848...
now minted their own, localised versions of decimal franc, batzen and rappen currencies, until Switzerland was again politically unified in 1848 and the modern Swiss franc was issued to replace the local currencies in the Federal Coinage Act of 1850.
Two-Rappen coins were struck until 1974 and withdrawn from circulation in 1978, one-Rappen coins continued to be struck until 2006 and were demonetised in 2007, long after they had fallen out of daily use. The 5, 10 and 20 rappen coins are currently in circulation, while the "füfzgi" is officially not a 50 rappen coin but a ½ franc coin (see Coins of the Swiss franc
Coins of the Swiss franc
-History:The country's name is on all the coins as "Confoederatio Helvetica", the Latin name of the Swiss Confederation, or "Helvetia" specified. The oldest coins are still valid today; the 10-centime coins dating back to 1879. They are therefore among the oldest still valid coins worldwide. To...
).