10 Pfennig, Stadt Halberstadt, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00420
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: 71.1 × 42.3 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Saxony-Anhalt Harz Low German

The type

Type: 10 Pfennig, Stadt Halberstadt, 1921
Printer: Louis Koch, Halberstadt
Rarity: common

HalberstadtGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

The Burg: The cathedral precinct, drawn between the Liebfrauenkirche and a tower. Most of what is shown here survived the war; the town around it did not.
Low German: *Ein paar Schauk mit Gold beschlahn ... de soll unser Künneken ha'n.* The dialect of the Harz foreland, printed on official paper.
Louis Koch, Halberstadt: The local house, which also printed Hoym's and Gernrode's sets - all three recognisably from one shop.

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.

Halberstadt was one of the great half-timbered towns of Germany before 1945, when eighty per cent of it was destroyed in twenty minutes. This April 1921 note shows the Burg von Halberstadt - the cathedral close - with a Low German couplet about a bit of show being worth gilding, and our little coins along with it.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 10 Pfennig, Stadt Halberstadt, 1921 in the collection.

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