10 Pfennig, Stadt Lemgo, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00454
Serial: D 111800
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.
council: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
Grade: AU (IBNS)
Bright; light edge toning. 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: 95.3 × 67.5 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Lippe Hanseatic Craft

The type

Type: 10 Pfennig, Stadt Lemgo, 1921
Printer: Flemming-Wiskott A.-G., Glogau
Rarity: common

LemgoGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Two smiths: Craft rather than commerce. Lemgo's Hanseatic wealth came from cloth, but by 1921 the town lived on metal and machinery.
The Lippe rose: The red rose of the principality of Lippe in the corner - Lemgo was a Lippe town and the rose is still on its arms.
Umwechselung in Reichsgeld: The note promises exchange into imperial money at the municipal treasury at any time, which is a stronger guarantee than most towns offered.

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.

Lemgo in Lippe calls itself die alte Hansestadt on its money, which is a fair claim - it joined the Hanse in the thirteenth century and grew rich on linen. The ten shows two smiths at an anvil in aprons, hammer raised, with a great gear wheel between them.

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

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