Author’s abstract: The optimal packings of \(n\) unit discs in the plane are known for those \(n\in\mathbb N\), which satisfy certain number theoretic conditions. Their geometric realizations are the extremal Groemer packings (or Wegner packings). But an extremal Groemer packing of \(n\) unit discs does not exist for all \(n\in\mathbb N\) and in this case, the number \(n\) is called exceptional. We are interested in number theoretic characterizations of the exceptional numbers. A counterexample is given to a conjecture of Wegner concerning such a characterization. We further give a characterization of the exceptional numbers, whose shape is closely related to that of Wegner’s conjecture.