5 Pfennig, Stadt Darmstadt, 1920

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.

Darmstadt was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse until 1918 and of the People's State of Hesse after it. Its December 1920 vouchers are plainly done - two flat colours, the city arms, the Oberbürgermeister's signature - and expire on nothing more definite than a future public announcement.