25 Pfennig, Stadt Lütjenburg, 1921
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00468
- 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.
- 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
- 91.3 × 59.6 mm (±1.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicHolsteinTown view
The type
- Type
- 25 Pfennig, Stadt Lütjenburg, 1921
- Printer
- Gebrüder Borchers, Lübeck
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- The market square
- Low gabled houses round a tree - the whole of a Holstein country town in one oval.
- Die Lütjenburger Zeitung
- The redemption notice would appear in the local paper, named on the note. Every town in this batch names its own newspaper as the instrument of its money's death.
- Gebrüder Borchers, Lübeck
- The Hanseatic printer that also produced Dassow's note.
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.
Lütjenburg is a small Holstein town near the Baltic, and its March 1921 notes are straightforward town portraits. The twenty-five shows the market square with its linden and the church tower behind.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 25 Pfennig, Stadt Lütjenburg, 1921 in the collection.
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