50 Pfennig, District of Borna, 1919
Gutschein des Bezirksverbandes der Amtshauptmannschaft Borna
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00339
- Series year
- 1919
- Actually issued
- 1919
- district_association
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- Grade
- UNC (IBNS)
Series E - the same design as OM-00338 from a different lettered 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
- 87.7 × 54.6 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneySaxonyDistrict issueWeimar Republic
The type
- Type
- 50 Pfennig, District of Borna, 1919
- Printer
- C. Meinhold & Soehne, Dresden; the design is signed H. Weyneck
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
Gueltig im Bezirk der Amtshauptmannschaft Borna bis zum 31. Dezember 1919. Gutschein ueber 50 Pfg. Der Bezirksverband der Amtshauptmannschaft Borna.
Valid in the district of the Borna administrative authority until 31 December 1919. Voucher for 50 pfennig. The district association of the Borna administrative authority.
Symbology
- Reihe E and Reihe F
- The issue was printed in lettered series rather than one continuous run, so the series letter rather than a serial number identifies the batch. Two of them are held here, identical but for that letter.
- The castle in the oval
- A tower above half-timbered houses and a walled garden, set in an oval like a portrait medallion. District issues tend to pick one building to stand for a whole administrative area, and the choice is usually the oldest thing in it.
- A district, not a town
- An *Amtshauptmannschaft* was the Saxon administrative district. Its association could issue paper good across every commune in it, which is more useful than a town note and the reason district issues circulated harder and survive more worn.
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.
Borna is a district town south of Leipzig, at the heart of the Saxon brown-coal field. This note is not the town's but the district association's - the Bezirksverband der Amtshauptmannschaft Borna - valid throughout the district until the last day of 1919.
It was issued in lettered series, and the collection holds two: Reihe E and Reihe F. The design is the same in both, a pale green field with a woodcut of a castle and half-timbered houses under a tower in an oval at the centre, signed by the artist H. Weyneck and printed by Meinhold of Dresden - one of the large Saxon houses, which is why the register is clean and the tint work is better than a district office needed.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, District of Borna, 1919 in the collection.
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