25 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1921
Gutschein der Stadt Köln
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00441
- Serial
- A IV 000442
- Series year
- 1921
- Actually issued
- 1921
- mayor
- Konrad Adenauer certain
Oberbürgermeister of Cologne 1917-1933 and Chancellor of West Germany from 1949. The facsimile is his.
- Grade
- AU (IBNS)
Bright; very light handling. About uncurrent: bright and unfolded, with light handling - a corner bump or a faint edge tone. Estimated from the 600 dpi archival scan, which cannot show paper crispness, pinholes, pressing or small repairs.
- Estimated value
- $8 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
- Dimensions
- 88.7 × 47.5 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneyRhinelandCologneKölschFrench occupationWeimar Republic
The type
- Type
- 25 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1921
- Printer
- M. DuMont Schauberg, Köln
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
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.
- M. DuMont Schauberg
- Printed by the house that still publishes the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, and had already been printing in Cologne for a century and a half.
- 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 25 Pfennig, Stadt Köln, 1921 in the collection.
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