10 Pfennig, Kriegsnotgeld of Hammelburg, 1918

Kriegsgeld der Stadt Hammelburg in Franken

Reverse of 10 Pfennig, Kriegsnotgeld of Hammelburg, 1918 — Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession: OM-00330
Series year: 1918
Actually issued: 1918
mayor: Michelbach uncertain
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
board_of_the_municipal_collegium: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
Grade: AU (IBNS)
Bright colour; light handling at the corners. About uncurrent: bright and unfolded, with light handling - a corner bump or a faint edge tone. Estimated from the 600 dpi archival scan, which cannot show paper crispness, pinholes, pressing or small repairs.
Estimated value: $8 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
Dimensions: 91.9 × 61.4 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Emergency money Kriegsnotgeld Bavaria First World War Franconia

The type

Type: 10 Pfennig, Kriegsnotgeld of Hammelburg, 1918
Printer: Not established; the design is signed Heinz and Schiestl
Rarity: common

HammelburgGermany, 1920 borders

Inscriptions

Reverse - the validity

Kriegsnotgeld Hammelburg. Zehn Pfennig. Giltig fuer den Geldverkehr bis 6 Monat nach Friedensschluss. Stadtmagistrat. Hammelburg, 10. Maerz 1918.

War emergency money of Hammelburg. Ten pfennig. Valid for monetary transactions until six months after the conclusion of peace. Town magistrate. Hammelburg, 10 March 1918.

Symbology

Six months after the conclusion of peace: The expiry is an event, not a date, because in March 1918 nobody would name one. Germany was eight months from the armistice and the note was still counting forward from a victory.
Saaleck castle above the vines: The ruined castle over the Saale valley and the vineyards below it. Hammelburg's wine is recorded from the eighth century and is the whole basis of the town's identity.
A serial number: Kriegsnotgeld is numbered because it is a debt the town has to account for. The collectors' Serienscheine of 1920 mostly are not - by then the point was to sell them, not to redeem them.

What was happening

This is Kriegsnotgeld - war emergency money, not the collectors' Notgeld of 1920-21 that followed it. Within weeks of mobilisation in 1914 silver and nickel coin vanished from circulation into hoards, and the Reichsbank could not supply enough small notes to replace it. Towns, districts and firms filled the gap themselves, on their own authority, redeemable against their own treasuries.

These early issues look like what they are: functional paper, serially numbered, with a validity tied not to a date but to the end of a war nobody could date.

Hammelburg is a small wine town on the Franconian Saale, and claims to be the oldest wine town in Franconia. Its ten-Pfennig note is dated 10 March 1918 and promises validity "for six months after the conclusion of peace" - a formula that in March 1918 still sounded like a date. The note carries a serial number and the signatures of the mayor and the board of the municipal collegium.

The face shows the castle of Saaleck above vineyards, drawn by the pair who signed most of Lower Franconia's emergency money: the brothers-in-arms Heinz and Schiestl, whose monograms appear in the corners of notes from Hammelburg, Coesfeld and Aschaffenburg alike.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 10 Pfennig, Kriegsnotgeld of Hammelburg, 1918 in the collection.

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