75 Pfennig, Stadt Holzminden, 1921
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00384
- Series year
- 1921
- Actually issued
- 1921
- council
- 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
- 79 × 50.7 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicLower SaxonyWeserTown view
The type
- Type
- 75 Pfennig, Stadt Holzminden, 1921
- Printer
- Gebrüder Jänecke, Hannover
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- A drawn numeral
- The 75 is lettered rather than typeset, in the same hand as the town's name - the whole face is one artist's drawing.
- The Weser bank
- The reverse shows the town from the river between two ornamental columns, the roofs stepping down to the water.
- Gebrüder Jänecke, Hannover
- A Hanover printing house that produced Notgeld for towns across Lower Saxony, including Rotenburg's.
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.
Holzminden is a Weser town in Brunswick, and its seventy-five is a quiet piece of design: green and cream, a hand-drawn numeral filling half the face, and the promise that the note dies on 1 May 1922.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 75 Pfennig, Stadt Holzminden, 1921 in the collection.
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