10 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1920

Gutschein der Stadt Köln

Reverse of 10 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1920 — Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession: OM-00439
Serial: B 39 152175
Series year: 1920
Actually issued: 1920
mayor: Konrad Adenauer certain
Oberbürgermeister of Cologne 1917-1933 and Chancellor of West Germany from 1949. The facsimile is his.
Grade: XF (IBNS)
Light toning and 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: 88.2 × 47 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Emergency money Rhineland Cologne Kölsch French occupation Weimar Republic

The type

Type: 10 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1920
Printer: M. DuMont Schauberg, Köln
Rarity: common

CologneGermany, 1920 borders

Inscriptions

Obverse - the terms

Dieser Gutschein wird von allen staedtischen Kassen in Zahlung genommen. Er verliert seine Gueltigkeit einen Monat nach Aufkuendigung in den Koelner Ortsblaettern. Die Stadtgemeinde Koeln haftet fuer die Einloesung.

This voucher will be accepted in payment by all municipal treasuries. It loses its validity one month after the call published in the Cologne local papers. The commune of Cologne stands behind its redemption.

Symbology

Konrad Adenauer's signature: Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967). The Oberbürgermeister's facsimile on these notes is Adenauer's. He was mayor of Cologne from 1917 until the Nazis removed him in 1933, and went on to serve as the first Chancellor of West Germany from 1949 to 1963, presiding over the country's postwar reconstruction and Western integration.
Jan von Werth: Jan von Werth (c. 1591–1652). The armoured figure is his statue in Cologne. A cavalry general of the Thirty Years' War who rose from stable boy to imperial field marshal, and whose legend - the maid who refused him, and regretted it - every Cologne child knows.
The red city seal: Struck across the face of every note. On paper with no engraved security work, the seal in a second colour is most of the defence against copying.

What was happening

Cologne's emergency money is not a collectors' series but a working currency, issued and re-issued by a city of seven hundred thousand from 1916 to 1921 because there was no coin. The notes are numbered, lettered by print run, stamped with the city seal in red, and signed by the Oberbürgermeister - for most of this period Konrad Adenauer, mayor from 1917 and Chancellor of West Germany thirty-two years later.

The later issues speak Kölsch. Halt fass do Kölscher Boor - hold fast, you Cologne farmer - and Bliev beim Rich et fall sös ov sor, stay with the Reich whatever befalls, sweet or sour. In 1920 the Rhineland was under Allied occupation and there was open talk of a separate Rhenish state; the city's small change is arguing against it.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 10 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1920 in the collection.

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