1 Mark, Stadt Brakel, Antonius-Strasse
Notgeld der Stadt Brakel, Kreis Höxter
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00401
- 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
- 87.9 × 56.7 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicWestphaliaLow GermanTown view
The type
- Type
- 1 Mark, Stadt Brakel, Antonius-Strasse
- Printer
- Not established
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- Antoniusstraße
- The street and its arch, drawn in flat colour with the fish of the Brakel arms in the side panels.
- Corner letters A and B
- Small letters in the lower corners of the reverse, marking this note's place in the series.
- Two different one-Mark notes
- Brakel issued more than one design at the same value, which is normal for a Serienschein town and the reason a catalogue has to name the picture and not just the denomination.
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.
A second one-Mark note from Brakel, quite different from the St. Anne's chapel design: a coloured view of the Antoniusstraße with its gateway and gabled houses, and on the face a Low German verse set in blackletter with the town arms worked into it.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 1 Mark, Stadt Brakel, Antonius-Strasse in the collection.
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