50 Pfennig, Stadt Eutin, 1920
Gutschein der Stadt Eutin
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00333
- Series year
- 1920
- Actually issued
- 1920
- magistrate
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- city_councillor
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- Grade
- UNC (IBNS)
As issued: full body, square corners, bright unfaded ink and no fold through the design. Estimated from the 600 dpi archival scan, which shows folds, soiling and edge condition but not paper crispness, pinholes, pressing or small repairs.
- Estimated value
- $10 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
- Dimensions
- 98.7 × 60.1 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneyHolsteinSerienscheinTown viewWeimar Republic
The type
- Type
- 50 Pfennig, Stadt Eutin, 1920
- Printer
- Not established
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
Dieser Gutschein verliert seine Gueltigkeit, wenn er nicht innerhalb eines Monats nach erfolgter oeffentlicher Aufforderung des Magistrats im Anzeiger fuer das Fuerstentum Luebeck und im Luebecker Generalanzeiger zur Einloesung bei der Stadtkasse in Eutin oder den bekanntgemachten Banken vorgelegt wird. Eutin, im Dezember 1920. Magistrat. Stadtrat.
This voucher loses its validity if it is not presented for redemption at the town treasury in Eutin or at the banks named, within one month of the magistrate's public call in the *Anzeiger fuer das Fuerstentum Luebeck* and the *Luebecker Generalanzeiger*. Eutin, December 1920. Magistrate. Town council.
Symbology
- Schloss Eutin
- The moated residence of the prince-bishops of Luebeck, rebuilt in brick around a courtyard, drawn across its water on the reverse. The town exists because the castle does.
- Roses
- Red roses run up both sides of the reverse. Eutin's rose garden and its lakeside walks were what the town sold to visitors once it had stopped being a court.
- The octagonal monogram
- A device of crossed strokes with the letters T, I and N arranged around it appears on both faces. It is the town's mark rather than a full coat of arms - the kind of compressed civic sign that Notgeld designers liked because it prints small.
- Redemption by newspaper
- The note names the two papers in which the call to redeem would appear. Before radio, a town's money died by advertisement.
What was happening
Notgeld - "emergency money". German towns, districts and firms began printing their own small change in 1914, when silver and nickel coin disappeared into hoards within weeks of mobilisation, and did not really stop until the stabilisation of 1923.
What began as necessity turned into a craze. By 1920 municipalities were commissioning Serienscheine: lithographed sets aimed squarely at collectors, printed far beyond any local need, illustrated with local legends, landmarks, famous sons and jokes in dialect. Selling them was itself a way of raising money - the town took real marks for notes it hoped would never be presented for redemption. The result is the most inventive body of graphic design in the history of paper money, produced by places with a few thousand inhabitants.
Eutin is a small residence town in eastern Holstein, between two lakes, the seat of the prince-bishops of Luebeck and later of the dukes of Oldenburg - a court town of a few thousand people that in the late eighteenth century drew enough writers to be called the Weimar of the North.
The note is dated December 1920 and its redemption clause is unusually specific about where notice would be given: in the Anzeiger fuer das Fuerstentum Luebeck and the Luebecker Generalanzeiger, two newspapers, one month after the call. The reverse shows the Schloss across its water, framed in red roses.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Stadt Eutin, 1920 in the collection.
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