25 Pfennig, Stadt Krappitz, 1920
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00443
- Series year
- 1920
- Actually issued
- 1920
- magistrate
- 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
- 88.2 × 58.3 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicSilesiaMunicipal finance
The type
- Type
- 25 Pfennig, Stadt Krappitz, 1920
- Printer
- Not established
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- Upper Silesia in 1920
- Contested ground: the plebiscite that would decide whether the region went to Germany or Poland was a year away, and three armed uprisings ran through the period. The note says nothing about any of it.
- An overstamped reverse
- The face refers to the voucher *auf der Rückseite abgestempelt* - stamped on the back. Validation by rubber stamp is the cheapest anti-forgery measure there is.
- Krapkowice
- The town has been Polish since 1945.
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.
Krappitz on the Oder in Upper Silesia - Krapkowice in Poland today - issued a plain blue voucher redeemable at the town treasury, valid to the end of the month following the call. The note is stamped on the reverse rather than printed with a picture.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 25 Pfennig, Stadt Krappitz, 1920 in the collection.
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