50 Pfennig, Notgeld of Preetz, 1921

This copy

Accession

OM-00202

Series year

1921

Actually issued

1921

Signatures

This issue carries no bank manager or cashier signature.

Grade

UNC (IBNS)

As issued; bright colour, sharp corners. Estimated from the archival scan. Folds, soiling and edge condition are visible at this resolution; paper crispness, pinholes, small repairs and pressing are not. Originally catalogued as Schoenau from a mis-detected crop; the recropped obverse reads 'Preetzer Notgeld'. A different scene from OM-00203 in the same Serienschein set.

Estimated value

$10 indicative

Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-07.

Dimensions

109.1 × 70.6 mm (±0.7, from the scan)

Themes

NotgeldEmergency moneyLocal designWeimar Republic

The type

Type

50 Pfennig, Notgeld of Preetz, 1921

Printer

Not established

Rarity

common

Inscriptions

Obverse — the issue

50 Preetzer Notgeld.

Fifty pfennig of Preetz emergency money.

Symbology

Local scene

Serienscheine were sold to collectors as much as spent, so towns illustrated whatever they were known for: a legend, a siege, a landmark, a joke in dialect. The picture is the point, not the denomination.

Expiry wording

Almost every note states that it lapses a month after being called in - emergency money designed from the outset to stop being money.

What was happening

Notgeld — "emergency money". German towns, districts and firms began printing their own small change in 1914 when metal coin vanished into hoards, and never really stopped until the 1923 stabilisation.

What began as necessity became a craze. By 1921 municipalities were commissioning Serienscheine — beautifully lithographed series aimed squarely at collectors, printed in quantities far beyond any local need, showing local legends, landmarks and jokes in dialect. Selling them to collectors was itself a way of raising money: the town received real marks for notes it hoped would never be redeemed.

The result is the most inventive body of graphic design in the history of paper money, produced by places with a few thousand inhabitants.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Notgeld of Preetz, 1921 in the collection.