25 Pfennig, Stadt Leopoldshall in Anhalt, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00458
Series year: 1921
Actually issued: 1921
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: 94.5 × 61.2 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Saxony-Anhalt Anhalt Potash mining

The type

Type: 25 Pfennig, Stadt Leopoldshall in Anhalt, 1921
Printer: Louis Koch, Halberstadt
Rarity: common

LeopoldshallGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Dampf-Fördermaschine: The face shows the steam winding engine that raised the cages, drawn in a machine hall with its crew beside it - industrial machinery as a civic emblem.
Kali- und Steinsalzgewinnung: "Potash and rock-salt extraction", printed across the foot. Germany had a world monopoly on potash until the French took Alsace back in 1918.
The fertiliser comparison: The reverse sets two fields side by side - *ohne Kalidüngung* and *Volldüngung einschl. Kali*, without potash and with it - with the sheaves to match. A town advertising its own product on its own money.
Mit Menschen- und Maschinenkraft: The verse: with the strength of men and machines, precious goods are brought to light; what was broken from the dark rock brings a rich harvest in the bright day.

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.

Leopoldshall existed because of potash. The world's first potash mine opened beside Staßfurt in the 1850s, and Leopoldshall was the Anhalt half of the field - a town that was essentially a shaft with houses round it. The note is about nothing else.

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

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