75 Pfennig, Stadt Kahla, 1921
Gutschein der Stadt Kahla S.-A.
Loading the detail view…
Scroll or pinch to zoom · drag to pan · Esc to close
This copy
- Accession
- OM-00430
- 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
- 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
- 111.3 × 69.6 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicThuringiaWar memorialLeuchtenburg
The type
- Type
- 75 Pfennig, Stadt Kahla, 1921
- Printer
- C. Schröter, Leipzig
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- The design
- It shows the same Hindenburg dedication on the face, with the castle's courtyard - the *Ehrenhof des Leuchtenburg-Ehrenmals* - on the back.
- Ausgabe and Verfall
- The face states both the day of issue and the day it dies - 15 September 1921 and 31 December 1921. Fifteen weeks of life, printed on the note itself.
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.
Kahla lies on the Saale below the Leuchtenburg, a hilltop castle the town turned into a war memorial after 1918. Its 1921 notes were issued in September, expired at the end of December, and are dedicated der Stadt Kahla gewidmet - a gift to the town, which is a curious thing for money to say.
This note shows the same Hindenburg dedication on the face, with the castle's courtyard - the Ehrenhof des Leuchtenburg-Ehrenmals - on the back.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 75 Pfennig, Stadt Kahla, 1921 in the collection.
Print an album label for this note →
← → to move between notes