100 Pfennig, Stadt Lütjenburg, 1921

This copy

Accession: OM-00469
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: 95.5 × 62.2 mm (±1.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Holstein Low German Satire

The type

Type: 100 Pfennig, Stadt Lütjenburg, 1921
Printer: Gebrüder Borchers, Lübeck
Rarity: common

LütjenburgGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Kümmel: The caraway spirit the town distilled. The verse is the town laughing at its own reputation, which is the most reliable subject in all of Notgeld.
Dat Rathus fallt up'n Kopp: The town hall falling on their heads - either the drink or the state of the building, and the joke works either way.
A panorama on the reverse: The whole town from the hill, in colour, under the denomination. The serious face of a note whose other side is a drinking joke.

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 hundred is the funny one. A man in a top hat clutches a bottle beside a Low German verse: in Lütjenborg makt se Kähm, to Elf gohtse Klock söbn, Klock acht stoht se weer opp, und dat Rathus fallt er bald up'n Kopp - in Lütjenburg they brew Kümmel; at eleven they go to bed at seven, at eight they are up again, and the town hall will soon fall on their heads.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 100 Pfennig, Stadt Lütjenburg, 1921 in the collection.

← → to move between notes