page_title: Johann Philipp Graumann
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Johann Philipp Graumann / Life
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Portraitbildnis Karl I. Herzog von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1713–1780)
context_page_description: Johann Philipp Graumann was a German business mathematician, an expert on exchange rates and coinage, mint master in Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and Berlin, a mercantilist and Prussian financial advisor. He is considered one of the most important German monetary theorists of his time. As master of the mints in Prussia, he implemented a major coin reform, with the goal of implementing a new monetary standard to promote trade, increase seigniorage income and elevate the Prussian coins to the status of a reserve currency. Graumann was portrayed by his contemporaries as a dreamer, but with only a slight modification his coin standard remained in place in Germany until 1907.
context_section_description: Not much is known about Graumann's early life, but for many years his father was in the service of Augustus William, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg as Graumann states in his second publication dedicated to his brother Louis Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Obviously, Graumann visited a gymnasium. At the beginning of his career, he was specializing in the arbitrage of exchange, c.q. the simultaneous purchase and sale of foreign exchanges in two or more markets to profit from discrepancies in quotations. Graumann was influenced by Christlieb von Clausberg, after publishing his Demonstrative Rechenkunst, Oder Wissenschaft, gründlich und kurz zu rechnen. Graumann claimed to be the inventor of the commercial chain rule, which he was not. Graumann lived in Hamburg (1730-1734) and in Amsterdam (1737-1740) and worked for the main Amsterdam merchant houses. (According to Willem Kersseboom, a financial expert, he came from Electorate of Hanover and arrived in Amsterdam around 1720, which is hard to prove.) He dedicated his fifth book to the Amsterdam burgomaster Daniel Hooft.
  On 26 January 1742, he was appointed by Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel as Münzmeister. In Braunschweig, his task was to increase the income of the Treasury and the volume of trade. Graumann was assisted in his task by Martin Kröncke. During the Austrian War of Succession a shortage of small coins existed all over Europe. In 1747 Graumann introduced a debased Albertustaler; he wanted to compete with the Dutch who used the Albertustaler to pay in the Baltic countries. In 1748/1749 he lived in Spain, working on his next book. In 1749 he published his groundbreaking Abdruck eines Schreibens, die Teutsche und anderer Völker Münzverfassung, insonderheit die hochfürstliche Braunschweigische Münze zu den Annehmlichkeiten betreffend, in which he described a plan to reform the mint and abandon the prevailing ​¹⁄₁₂ Leipzig standard for silver coins (= 12 thalers per Cologne fine mark).  The book brought the activities of the Brunswick mint officials to the attention of the Prussian King Frederick II. His ideas about gold, which was 4% overvalued, were accepted by the government in Brunswick and by Frederick, but not by Julius Melchior Strube, who wrote a reply for the government in Churhannover, c.q. George II of England.
caption: Karl I von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel by Johann Conrad Eichler
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