2 euro Germany 2008, St. Michaelis Church in Hamburg






German commemorative 2 euro coins - Hamburg from the "Bundesländer" series


Commemorative 2 euro coins from Germany
The third release in the annual German Federation series features one of the smallest of the 16 German states, Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Description: The inner part of the coin shows St. Michaelis Church in Hamburg. The name of the federal State HAMBURG is inscribed beneath the image of the church. To the right of the church are the engraver's stylised initials OE and above it towards the centre the mint mark.  The twelve stars of the European Union form a semicircle on the upper part of the outer ring, interrupted by the year of mintage '2008'at the top of the coin. The words "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" form a semicircle on the lower part of the outer ring.



Reverse: left from the coin centre face value: 2, on the right inscription: EURO; in the background of the inscription a map of Europe; in the background of the map vertically six parallel lines ending on both sides with five-pointed stars (the reverse is common for all euro coins)

Designer: Erich Ott is credited with the design of the German 2008 €2 Euro Commemorative coin.
Issuing volume: 30 million coins

Date of issue: 2 February 2007
Face value:     2 euro
Diameter:        25.75 mm
Thickness:       2.2 mm
Weight:            8.5 gr
Composition: BiAlloy (Nk/Ng), ring Cupronickel (75% copper - 25% nickel clad on nickel core), center Nickel brass
€2 Edge Inscription: The German €2 coin edge inscription is "EINIGKEIT UND RECHT UND FREIHEIT" (Unity and Justice and Freedom), followed by the German federal eagle.

Mint Marks:
A - Berlin National Mint ( Staatliche Münze Berlin ) in Berlin, Germany.
D - Bavarian Central Mint ( Bayerisches Hauptmünzamt ) in München, Germany.
F - Baden-Württemberg National Mint, Stuttgart Embossing ( Staatliche Münzen Baden-Württemberg Prägestätte Stuttgart ) in Stuttgart, Germany.
G - Baden-Württemberg National Mint, Karlsruhe Embossing ( Staatliche Münzen Baden-Württemberg Prägestätte Karlsruhe ) in Karslruhe, Germany.
J - Hamburg Mint ( Hamburgische Münze ), in Hamburg, Germany.
while B, C, E and H used to be mint locations that had been closed prior to the introduction of the Euro.

German Bundesländer series
Germany started the commemorative coin series Die 16 Bundesländer der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (The 16 States of the Federal Republic of Germany) in 2006, which will continue until 2021. Coins will be issued in the same sequence as the annual rotation of the presidency in the 'Bundesrat' (upper house of parliament), in which the 16 federal states are represented.
The coins issued are: 2 euro 2006 Schleswig-Holstein, 2 euro 2007 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 2 euro 2008 Hamburg, 2 euro 2009 Saarland, 2 euro 2010 Bremen, 2 euro 2011 North Rhine-Westphalia, 2 euro 2012 Bavaria, 2 euro 2013 Baden-Württemberg, 2 euro 2014 Lower Saxony, 2 euro 2015 Hesse, 2 euro 2016 Saxony, 2 euro 2017 Rhineland-Palatinate, 2 euro 2018 Berlin, 2 euro 2019 Saxony-Anhalt, 2 euro 2020 Thuringia, 2 euro 2021 Brandenburg.

St. Michael's Church, Hamburg
St. Michael's Church, is one of Hamburg's five Lutheran main churches (Hauptkirchen) and the most famous church in the city. St. Michaelis is a landmark of the city. It is dedicated to the Archangel Michael. A large bronze statue, standing above the portal of the church shows the archangel conquering the devil.
The 132-metre high Baroque spire totally covered with copper is a prominent feature of Hamburg’s skyline and has always been a landfall mark for ships sailing up the river Elbe.

Hamburg
Hamburg, officially Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg (Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg), is the second largest city in Germany and the eighth largest city in the European Union. It is also the thirteenth largest German state. It is home to over 1.8 million people, while the Hamburg Metropolitan Region (including parts of the neighbouring Federal States of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein) has more than 5 million inhabitants. On the river Elbe, the port of Hamburg is the second largest port in Europe (after the Port of Rotterdam) and tenth largest worldwide.
The official name reflects its history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, as a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, and that it is a city-state, and one of the 16 states of Germany. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany, it was a fully sovereign state. Prior to the constitutional changes in 1919, the stringent civic republic was ruled by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten.
Hamburg is a major transport hub and is one of the most affluent cities in Europe. It has become a media and industrial centre, with plants and facilities belonging to Airbus, Blohm + Voss and Aurubis. The radio and television broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk and publishers such as Gruner + Jahr and Spiegel-Verlag are pillars of the important media industry in Hamburg. Hamburg has been an important financial centre for centuries, and is the seat of the world's second oldest bank, Berenberg Bank. There are more than 120,000 enterprises.
The city is a major tourist destination for both domestic and overseas visitors; it ranked 17th in the world for livability in 2012, and in 2010 it ranked 10th in the world.