50 Pfennig, Stadt Beverungen, 1921
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00398
- 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 × 51.5 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicWestphaliaWeserTavern scene
The type
- Type
- 50 Pfennig, Stadt Beverungen, 1921
- Printer
- Not established
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- Polizeistunde
- The legally enforced closing hour. The joke is that the good old days had one too, and a long verse below explains how the regulars played on regardless.
- Weserstraße
- The face shows the main street running down to the river, framed in oak.
- A note about drinking
- Most Serienscheine sell a castle or a saint. This one sells the pub, which is a more honest account of what a small town is for.
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.
Beverungen is a small Weser town, and its fifty is about closing time. The reverse shows a tavern at midnight - a policeman at the door, cards on the table, a clock reading twelve and a sign reading Polizeistunde 12 Uhr - under the heading Aus der guten alten Zeit, from the good old days.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Stadt Beverungen, 1921 in the collection.
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