80 Pfennig, Stadt Altona, 1921
Notgeld der Stadt Altona
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00388
- Series year
- 1921
- Actually issued
- 1921
- magistrate_1
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- magistrate_2
- 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
- 95 × 65.9 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicHolsteinHamburgTown viewSerienschein
The type
- Type
- 80 Pfennig, Stadt Altona, 1921
- Printer
- H. W. Köbner & Co., Altona
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- Old Altona
- The quarter drawn here is the one that burned in 1943. The note is a picture of a place that no longer exists in this form.
- Eighty Pfennig
- Another value chosen for a set rather than a till.
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.
The eighty shows old Altona from the water - gabled houses above a fenced shore, the masts of small craft, the red roofs of the fishing town the city grew out of.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 80 Pfennig, Stadt Altona, 1921 in the collection.
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