25 Pfennig, Stadt Bitburg, 1920
Stadt Bitburg - 25 Pfennig
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00335
- Series year
- 1920
- Actually issued
- 1920
- mayor
- Dr. Messerich probable
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- Grade
- UNC (IBNS)
A pencilled price in the upper left margin from an earlier owner. 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
- 89.7 × 58.8 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneyRhinelandFrench occupationTown viewWeimar Republic
The type
- Type
- 25 Pfennig, Stadt Bitburg, 1920
- Printer
- Not established
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
25 Pfennig zahlt die Stadtkasse zu Bitburg dem Einlieferer dieses Scheines. Bitburg, den 1. April 1920. Der Buergermeister. Gueltig bis 6 Monate nach dem oeffentlich bekannt zu machenden Einloesungstage.
The town treasury of Bitburg will pay 25 pfennig to the bearer of this note. Bitburg, 1 April 1920. The mayor. Valid until six months after the redemption day to be publicly announced.
Symbology
- The town gate
- Bitburg's gate drawn in a shield on the face, wreathed in oak. The oak is the standard German civic plant and carries no particular local meaning; the gate does - a walled town in the Eifel whose walls were its history.
- The red cachet
- A circular *Stadt Bitburg* stamp struck in red across the lower face. On a note with a printed serial and a printed signature the stamp adds nothing technical; it adds the look of an official act.
- April 1920, in the occupied Rhineland
- Bitburg lay in the zone held by French forces under the Versailles terms. The note says nothing about it - occupied towns' money almost never does - but the date and the place together are the context for every transaction it passed through.
- Six months after a day not yet named
- The town reserved the right to choose when to call the notes in, then gave holders half a year from that unfixed point. A promise with two open ends.
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.
Bitburg is in the Eifel, in the western Rhineland - which in April 1920, when this note is dated, meant occupied territory. The Rhineland west of the river was held by Allied troops under the Versailles settlement, and the Eifel lay in the French zone.
The note is numbered, signed by the mayor Messerich, struck with a red Stadt Bitburg cachet across the face, and valid until six months after a redemption day still to be announced. The face shows the town gate in a shield with oak leaves; the reverse, a church and a round tower above the roofs.
It is a plain, almost severe piece of design - black on cream with one red overprint - and that restraint is itself worth noting. Notgeld from occupied towns tends not to be playful.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 25 Pfennig, Stadt Bitburg, 1920 in the collection.
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