50 Pfennig, Stadt Höxter, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00383
Series year: 1921
Actually issued: 1921
magistrate: 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: 81.9 × 61.4 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Westphalia Poetry Hoffmann von Fallersleben

The type

Type: 50 Pfennig, Stadt Höxter, 1921
Printer: Not established
Rarity: common

HöxterGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Deutschland, Deutschland über alles: "Germany, Germany above all" — the first line of August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben's (1798–1874) poem, printed at the head of the reverse beside his portrait. It became the national anthem in 1922, the year after this note - so Höxter was claiming him before the state did.
Corvey: The abbey he worked and died in, shown in the side panels. Founded 822, it holds one of the oldest standing westworks in Europe.
Three panels: Portrait in the centre, buildings either side - the standard Serienschein arrangement for a town with one famous resident.

What was happening

Notgeld began in 1914 out of necessity: coin vanished into hoards within weeks of mobilisation and towns printed their own small change because the Reichsbank could not supply enough.

By 1920 it had become something else. The shortage was easing but the collector market was not, and a town could take real marks for paper it hoped would never be presented. So the municipalities commissioned Serienscheine: lithographed sets, printed far beyond any local need, illustrated with whatever the place was proud of - a legend, a famous son, a battle, a joke in dialect. The result is the most inventive body of graphic design in the history of paper money, made by places with a few thousand inhabitants, in the years when Germany's currency was dying.

Höxter stands on the Weser beside the abbey of Corvey, and its note is about the man buried there. Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the Lied der Deutschen on Heligoland in 1841; dismissed from his chair at Breslau for his politics, he ended as librarian to the Duke of Ratibor at Corvey from 1860 and died there in 1874. The note records exactly that, in capitals across the reverse.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Stadt Höxter, 1921 in the collection.

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