25 Pfennig, Stadt Frankfurt am Main, 1919
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00413
- Series year
- 1919
- Actually issued
- 1919
- magistrate
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- Grade
- XF (IBNS)
Light even toning; soft corners. 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
- $5.5 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
- Dimensions
- 84 × 56.7 mm (±1.1, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicHesseMunicipal financeTown view
The type
- Type
- 25 Pfennig, Stadt Frankfurt am Main, 1919
- Printer
- R. Th. Hauser & Co., Frankfurt a. M.
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- The Frankfurt eagle
- The single-headed eagle of the free imperial city, which Frankfurt had been until 1866. Printed on a note issued by a Prussian provincial city fifty years after it stopped being sovereign.
- The Main from the bridge
- The reverse gives a view over the river to the cathedral tower, drawn small inside the numeral.
- Lit. D
- A print-run letter at the foot of the face; Frankfurt reprinted this issue several times.
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.
Frankfurt's November 1919 voucher is a big city's plain paper: two flat colours, the imperial eagle of the old free city twice on the face, a number and a signature.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 25 Pfennig, Stadt Frankfurt am Main, 1919 in the collection.
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