50 Pfennig, Kreisstadt Bensheim, 1920
Gutschein der Kreisstadt Bensheim ueber Fuenfzig Pfennig
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00336
- Series year
- 1920
- Actually issued
- 1920
- mayor
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- Grade
- UNC (IBNS)
The same type and printing as OM-00334, a thousand numbers apart in the run. 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
- 88.5 × 64.6 mm (±1, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneyHesseTown anniversarySerienscheinWeimar Republic
The type
- Type
- 50 Pfennig, Kreisstadt Bensheim, 1920
- Printer
- Not established
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
Die Einloesung dieses Scheines erfolgt bei der Stadtkasse Bensheim. Der Zeitpunkt des Ablaufs der Gueltigkeit dieses Scheines wird in den beiden Bensheimer Blaettern oeffentlich bekannt gemacht. Bensheim, den 31. Dezember 1920. Der Buergermeister.
This note will be redeemed at the Bensheim town treasury. The date on which its validity expires will be published in the two Bensheim newspapers. Bensheim, 31 December 1920. The mayor.
Seid einig.
Be united.
Symbology
- 1320 and 1920
- Two arches, two pictures, six hundred years apart: a knight at the medieval gate, and a motor car with a locomotive behind it. The town's charter anniversary fell in the year it had to print its own money, and it made the coincidence the whole design.
- Seid einig
- "Be united", set into the four corners of the face. Germany in 1920 had just come through revolution, the Kapp putsch and the first reparations conferences; a town telling its citizens to hold together is not making a neutral remark.
- The cogwheels and the lion
- Two small shields flank the name on the reverse - industry on one side, the Hessian lion on the other. A district town locating itself between what it makes and whom it belongs to.
- A serial number on a Serienschein
- Bensheim numbered its notes even though most 1920 collectors' issues did not, which suggests it still expected to be asked for the money back.
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.
Bensheim stands on the Bergstrasse in southern Hesse, at the foot of the Odenwald. Its note is dated 31 December 1920, numbered, and the redemption date was to be published in the two Bensheim newspapers - a promise to announce a promise.
The design turns on a pair of dates. Two arches side by side on the reverse are labelled 1320 and 1920: under the first, a knight in plate at a town gate; under the second, a motor car and a railway locomotive in front of the same town. Bensheim received its town rights in 1320, and in 1920, six hundred years later and in the middle of a currency collapse, it marked the anniversary on its emergency money.
Two copies are held, with consecutive-range serial numbers from the same printing.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Kreisstadt Bensheim, 1920 in the collection.
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