50 Pfennig, Stadt Lügde, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00465
Series year: 1921
Actually issued: 1921
board_1: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
board_2: not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
board_3: 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: 96.3 × 65.1 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Lippe Town wall Easter wheels

The type

Type: 50 Pfennig, Stadt Lügde, 1921
Printer: J. C. König & Ebhardt, Hannover
Rarity: common

LügdeGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

The Easter wheel: A wheel stuffed with straw and bound with withies, drawn in an oval on the face. Lügde has rolled them burning down the hill every Easter for centuries.
Die Stadtmauer: The reverse shows the town wall and its tower above the roofs, flanked by a halberd and a torch.
The arms of Lügde: A cross and a key on a shield - the key of St. Peter, whose church stands in the town.

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.

Lügde in Lippe is known for one thing above all: on Easter Sunday its men roll six great oak wheels packed with straw, blazing, down the Osterberg into the valley. The custom is recorded from the Middle Ages and is still done. The face of the fifty shows one of the wheels, bound and ready.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Stadt Lügde, 1921 in the collection.

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