25 Pfennig, Stadt Greiffenberg in Schlesien, 1920

Notgeld der Stadt Greiffenberg i. Schl.

Reverse of 25 Pfennig, Stadt Greiffenberg in Schlesien, 1920 — Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession: OM-00418
Series year: 1920
Actually issued: 1920
savings_bank_1: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
savings_bank_2: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
savings_bank_3: 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: 93.7 × 63.8 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Silesia Frederick the Great Town history

The type

Type: 25 Pfennig, Stadt Greiffenberg in Schlesien, 1920
Printer: Flemming-Wiskott A.-G., Glogau
Rarity: common

GreiffenbergGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Ritter Gotsche Schof schlägt den Greif: "The knight Gotsche Schoff slays the griffin." The face shows him killing the griffin the town is named for — Greiffenberg, griffin-hill.
Frederick the Great: Frederick the Great (1712–1786). The reverse shows the Greiffenberg councillors thanking him in 1785 for rebuilding the town after a fire, with his reply: *Ein Königswort: Ihr habt mir nicht zu danken, denn davor bin ich da* - you have no need to thank me; that is what I am here for.
A town that is no longer there: Greiffenberg became Gryfów Śląski in 1945 and its German population was expelled. The note is money from a place that has since changed language.

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.

Greiffenberg is a Silesian cloth town in the Isergebirge, now Gryfów Śląski in Poland. Its 1920 notes were issued by the municipal savings bank and drawn by Heinz and Schiestl, the pair who signed Notgeld across Franconia and beyond.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 25 Pfennig, Stadt Greiffenberg in Schlesien, 1920 in the collection.

← → to move between notes