50 Pfennig, District of Auerbach im Vogtland, 1921
Gutschein des Bezirksverbandes Auerbach i. Vogtland
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00395
- Series year
- 1921
- Actually issued
- 1921
- district
- 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
- 102.6 × 74.3 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicSaxonyVogtlandSilhouetteDistrict issue
The type
- Type
- 50 Pfennig, District of Auerbach im Vogtland, 1921
- Printer
- Ratsdruckerei R. Dulce, Glauchau
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- Scene 1
- The bailiff at table, a servant bringing in a covered dish. The story continues on the other notes of the set, so no single note finishes it.
- Hans Kinder
- Signed *mit der Schere geschnitten von Hans Kinder* - cut with scissors. Scherenschnitt was a serious craft and the credit is given as an artist's, not a printer's.
- The Saxon arms
- Barry of sable and or with a crancelin of rue - the arms of Saxony, on a district that had been Saxon since the fourteenth century.
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 district of Auerbach in the Vogtland issued a numbered set in July 1921, cut as silhouettes by Hans Kinder and printed by the council press at Glauchau. The scenes are numbered and run a story about a gluttonous bailiff who goes looking for a dish of a rarer kind: Der Landvogt war ein Schlemmerbart, sucht ein Gericht gar seltner Art.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, District of Auerbach im Vogtland, 1921 in the collection.
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