50 Pfennig, Stadt Finsterwalde, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00412
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: 105 × 74.3 mm (±1.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Brandenburg Town history

The type

Type: 50 Pfennig, Stadt Finsterwalde, 1921
Printer: Not established
Rarity: common

FinsterwaldeGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Bürgereid: "The citizen's oath." The oath sworn by a new burgher. Putting it on the money in 1921 is a town reminding itself what citizenship used to mean.
The town gate: The face shows the gate and towers in a shield between drawn curtains, with 1921 split either side.
A month's notice: Validity ends a month after the call by the usual local announcement.

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.

Finsterwalde in the Niederlausitz issued this in July 1921. The reverse is a dark processional scene captioned as the burghers' oath - armed townsmen with banners and halberds - printed in a heavy brown that makes the whole note look older than it is.

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

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