50 Pfennig, Gemeinde Ennigerloh, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00409
Series year: 1921
Actually issued: 1921
mayor: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
council: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
Grade: AU (IBNS)
Bright; a faint crease at the lower right. About uncurrent: bright and unfolded, with light handling - a corner bump or a faint edge tone. Estimated from the 600 dpi archival scan, which cannot show paper crispness, pinholes, pressing or small repairs.
Estimated value: $8 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
Dimensions: 96.1 × 62.7 mm (±1.5, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Westphalia Turnip winter Satire

The type

Type: 50 Pfennig, Gemeinde Ennigerloh, 1921
Printer: W. Girardet, Essen
Rarity: common

EnnigerlohGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Turnips and jam: The *Steckrübenwinter* of 1916-17, when the potato crop failed and Germany ate swedes, was three years past and still the thing a village chose to record.
A devil on the face: A small black demon capers beside the denomination against a sunburst - the hunger the table on the reverse survived.
W. Girardet, Essen: A Ruhr publishing house; Ennigerloh is thirty miles north in farming country that fed it.

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.

Ennigerloh in the Münsterland issued this in June 1921, and its reverse is about food. A row of turnips hangs across the top; below, a long table of people eating; at the right, three jars labelled MARMELADE. The caption imagines the future: einst werden Kindeskinder sagen - wir haben uns durchgeschlagen - one day our grandchildren will say we got through it.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Gemeinde Ennigerloh, 1921 in the collection.

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