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History
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Kipper und Wipper: The 1620s Crisis That Turned Coins into Children's Playthings
During the 1621-23 Kipper und Wipper crisis, states in the Holy Roman Empire debased currency so severely to fund the Thirty Years' War that hyperinflation ensued. Coins lost so much value, containing more copper than silver, that they were reportedly used by children as worthless toys.
We tend to think of money as a stable store of value, a reliable measure of worth. But history is littered with episodes that shatter this assumption. One of the most striking is the tale of the Kipper und Wipperzeit, or the 'Kipper and Wipper' period, a devastating hyperinflationary crisis that swept through the Holy Roman Empire from 1621 to 1623. It was a time when official currency became so debased and worthless that children were said to use the coins as toys.
A Perfect Storm: War and Desperation
The crisis didn't happen in a vacuum. It was a direct consequence of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), one of the most destructive conflicts in European history. Rulers and states across the German-speaking lands were desperate to fund their massive mercenary armies. With tax revenues exhausted, they turned to a seemingly magical solution: manipulating the currency itself. The Imperial currency system, based on the silver Reichstaler, was supposed to be stable, but the pressures of war rendered regulations meaningless.
The Mechanics of Monetary Collapse
The name Kipper und Wipper describes the methods used by fraudulent minters. The process was simple but devastatingly effective. Mints, some operated by states and others by opportunistic private individuals, would gather high-quality silver coins. The 'Wippen' part involved using a tipping scale to sort out the full-weight coins from the underweight ones. The 'Kippen' (from 'kippen', to clip) part involved clipping the edges off these good coins. The collected silver clippings, along with melted-down good coins, were then mixed with large amounts of cheaper base metals like copper, lead, and tin. This debased alloy was used to mint new coins that had the same face value as the old ones but a fraction of the precious metal content. This bad money flooded the economy. As economist Thomas Gresham famously observed centuries later in a similar context, "bad money drives out good." People hoarded the few remaining good silver coins, and only the worthless copper-filled currency circulated, losing value by the day.
When Money Becomes Worthless
The result was catastrophic hyperinflation. Prices for essential goods, especially grain, skyrocketed. A contemporary chronicler, Count Philipp von Solms-Laubach, noted the chaos:
It was a sad state of affairs in Germany at the time... the price of grain and all victuals rose daily, and a famine was feared, for the peasant did not want to sell his goods for the bad money.
Wages couldn't keep up, and life savings were wiped out almost overnight. Riots and social unrest became common as people targeted minters and officials they blamed for their ruin. The debased coins, particularly the small denominations, became so plentiful and valueless that they were literally treated as junk. It is this period that gave rise to the enduring image of children playing in the streets with coins that once represented real wealth, a powerful symbol of complete economic collapse.
The Aftermath and an Enduring Lesson
The crisis ended as abruptly as it began. In 1623, the most powerful states, like Austria and Bavaria, re-established a sound currency standard, effectively declaring the debased Kippergeld worthless. While this stabilized the monetary system, it delivered a final, brutal blow to anyone still holding the bad money. The speculators who had profited were few; the common people who lost everything were many. The Kipper und Wipper crisis stands as a stark historical lesson on the dangers of currency debasement and the fragile nature of trust in a monetary system. When faith in money is lost, it can become little more than a child's plaything.