The origin of the common Mint standard of Lübeck and Hamburg was the division of the mark into 16 schillingen, and each schilling into 12 pfennige. The metal mark and the Mint mark soon parted company, and by the time of the treaty of 1255 the two states agreed to mint the mark of fine silver into 38 schillingen 10 pfennige (= 2 marks 6 schillingen 10 pfennige).
The Wendish standard was established by the adoption in 1325 of the Hamburg-Lübeck treaty by Wismar and Lüneburg.
In 1433 this Wendish standard adopted the Cologne mark as its weight basis.
Mks. Sch. Pf. 1226--The mark of fine silver coined into 2 2 0 1255 " " " 2 9 5 1293 " " " 2 9 8 1305 " " " 2 15 5 1325 " " " 3 0 9 1353 " " " 3 10 11 1375 " " " 4 3 0 1398 " " " 4 15 2 1403 " " " 5 1 11 1411 " " " 5 12 5 1430 " " " 8 8 0 1450 " " " 9 12 2 1461 " " " 11 8 10 1506 " " " 12 8 0
The Mint Union of the Wendish states continued until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when it expired unperceived. The experience of Hamburg in the _Kipper und Wipper Zeit_, with its resultant establishment of the Hamburg Bank, has been already referred to.
In 1667 Hamburg freely joined the _Zinnaische_ standard, according to which the mark of fine silver was coined into 10-1/2 thalers (= 31 marks 8 schillingen, _Hamburger courant_). She, however, hesitated to follow the German system in its change over to the Leipzig standard in 1690, and after an interim period of weltering disorder, during which the standard varied from 30 marks to 34 marks 8 schillingen per mark fine of silver, the State adopted in 1725 the so-called Lübeck standard (1 mark fine = 34 marks), as the Hamburger courant.
This standard had existed in Holstein from 1693. In 1788 and 1789 long and serious debates were held in Hamburg on the question of the substitution of a lighter (or lower) standard. And seventy years later a change in such direction had practically effected itself, although not legislatively recognised. By 1850 the actual currency of the state consisted mostly of silver coins of the Prussian (or 14-thaler) standard, circulating at an equivalence of 1 thaler = 2-1/2 marks Hamburger courant (= 40 schillingen), an equivalence implying a standard of 35 marks courant to the mark of fine silver.