Gold is becoming more and more sought-after and expensive. Interest in the Goldvreneli is also greater than it has been for a long time. But how did the small coin become a Swiss cultural asset?
The 20-franc Goldvreneli is both the best-known and the most mysterious coin in Switzerland. Every Swiss person, young and old, is or has owned a Goldvreneli. There is at least one of these gold coins in almost every Swiss household. Yet most people know very little about their origins and history.
The Swiss population is currently in a veritable gold rush due to the record high price of gold. This has led to many people selling their jewelry or their Vreneli. Occasionally, supply even exceeds demand. This is an unusual situation, precious metals expert Christian Brenner recently told the NZZ. Nevertheless, demand for physical gold remains extremely high.
When the Swiss buy gold, they buy gold bars or Goldvreneli. They give it away as a gift, put it in a bank vault or hide it in a box under the bed. In the last twenty years, the price of a single Goldvreneli has increased fivefold. Today, a 20-franc Vreneli costs around 400 francs. In 2004, it was still 90 francs.
The girl on the coin
The first 20-franc Goldvreneli was minted in 1897, the last in 1949. The same face is emblazoned on all of them. It belongs to a woman from Oberhasli, more precisely from Gadmen. The village on the Susten Pass is the home of Rosa Tännler, whose face inspired the medalist Fritz Ulysse Landry to create his design.
In 1895, the Federal Council was looking for a motif for a new coin. It had to be Swiss, national. The medalist Landry submitted the subject with Rosa Tännler. But the jury rejected his design. They thought that the portrayed Helvetia looked too young, too dreamy. Landry revised his design. In the new design, Rosa Tännler had braided hair and a more mature face, and she wore a wreath of edelweiss over her shoulders.
He almost convinced the jury with this. If it hadn’t been for a concerned magistrate who criticized the first trial coins in 1897. The forelock gave the woman a frivolous appearance, which contradicted the dignity of a personification of Switzerland. The forelock was therefore omitted from the final coin.
The back of the 20er-Vreneli.
Until the introduction of the first 20-franc notes in 1911 and the 5-franc notes in 1913, the Vreneli served as a common means of payment with a value of 20 francs. The Federal Mint in Bern minted the gold coins. From 1936 onwards, however, the Vreneli disappeared from circulation. It was only traded and primarily hoarded.
Gondo and concentration camp gold
A total of 58.6 million Vreneli coins were produced over 53 years. These include numerous sought-after collector’s items. The Gondo gold coins are particularly rare and valuable.
In 1897, 29 Vreneli were minted from the gold of the former Valais mine at the Simplon Pass. The Gondo coins can be recognized by their lighter color and a cross-shaped mark. In today’s market, a copy could fetch between 100,000 and 150,000 francs at auction. Only the coins with the forelock from 1897 are more valuable. In 2016, one of these changed hands for 172,500 francs.
However, not all Vreneli have a glorious past. A revelation in the “Sonntags-Zeitung” on June 7, 1998 revealed a dark chapter: Swiss coins were made from concentration camp gold. At least 200 bars of so-called sacrificial gold came into the possession of the Swiss National Bank in 1944 and were used to mint Gold Vreneli in 1947 and 1949.
The gold came from the jewelry and broken teeth of victims in concentration camps. Starting in August 1942, SS Hauptsturmführer Bruno Melmer delivered a total of 76 shipments from concentration and extermination camps in Eastern Europe to the Reichsbank. According to an independent commission of experts that investigated Swiss gold transactions during World War II, 119.5 kilograms of this so-called Melmer gold flowed into the German Reichsbank’s depot at the Swiss National Bank in Bern.
Accounts from the Swiss National Bank to the Federal Mint show that such bars were used for the Vreneli coins of 1947 and 1949. The National Bank has continuously provided the mint with gold for coinage since the end of the war, with at least 34 bars being processed into Vreneli. It remains unclear how much Holocaust gold ultimately went into the coins. But the possibility that such bars were used for gold Vreneli cannot be ruled out.
S Vreneli ab em Guggisberg
Today, the Vreneli is more than just a coin. It symbolizes Swiss tradition and craftsmanship. Collectors and investors alike value the Vreneli as an investment. But why is it called Vreneli at all?
Numismatic literature indicates that “Vreneli” is a diminutive of the female first name Verena. Due to the youthful appearance of the depicted Helvetia, it is more likely that it is a Vreneli than a woman named Verena.
The Solothurn auction house Lugdunum links the name to the well-known Swiss folk song “S Vreneli ab em Guggisberg”, which was very popular in the 19th century and was heard at every village or folk festival.
Worldwide, the Goldvreneli remains one of the few old coins that is popular in modern society. This may be because in Switzerland the Goldvreneli has been given as a godparent’s gift or as a Christmas and birthday present for children for generations. In other countries, gold coins were often used as a reserve in times of war and crisis.
Regardless of whether many or few coins are sold, the face on the most popular Swiss gold coin remains the same. But its value changes. Since the quake on the stock markets last August, investors have increasingly turned to gold, which is considered a safe haven. At over 2,500 dollars per troy ounce, the precious metal recently reached an unprecedented level of value.