25 Pfennig, Stadt Lemgo, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00455
Serial: E 042862
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: 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: 95.5 × 67.2 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Lippe Hanseatic Town view

The type

Type: 25 Pfennig, Stadt Lemgo, 1921
Printer: Flemming-Wiskott A.-G., Glogau
Rarity: common

LemgoGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Das Rathaus: One of the finest town halls in Germany and almost untouched by the war. The drawing on the note is recognisably the building that still stands.
1195: The traditional date of Lemgo's founding by Bernhard II of Lippe, set in the arch above the town hall.
Lettered series: D on the ten, E on the twenty-five, each with a six-figure serial - print runs rather than picture variants.

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.

The twenty-five turns to the building the town is known by: the Rathaus, a range of Weser Renaissance work begun in the sixteenth century, with its two spires and arcaded front, dated 1195 for the town's foundation.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 25 Pfennig, Stadt Lemgo, 1921 in the collection.

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