5 Pfennig, Stadt Lyck, 1920

This copy

Accession: OM-00471
Series year: 1920
Actually issued: 1920
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: 83.7 × 52.5 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic East Prussia Masuria Plebiscite

The type

Type: 5 Pfennig, Stadt Lyck, 1920
Printer: Flemming-Wiskott A.-G., Glogau
Rarity: common

LyckGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

8,339 to 7: The margin is printed on the note. Masuria was Protestant and Polish-speaking in part, and voted overwhelmingly to stay German - a result the Polish side always disputed the conditions of, held as it was while the Red Army was approaching Warsaw.
The lake: The reverse shows the Lyck lake with the town behind it and a sail on the water - the Masurian lakeland the district lives on.
Masovia, mein Vaterland: Four lines of a Masurian song run under the picture, ending *Masovia, live, my fatherland*.

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.

Lyck called itself Masurens Hauptstadt, the capital of Masuria, and its 1920 notes exist to record a vote. On 11 July 1920 the Allies held a plebiscite across Masuria and Warmia: stay with East Prussia, or join Poland. The note states the local result on its face - in the town of Lyck, 8,339 voted for Germany and only 7 for Poland.

Lyck is Ełk in Poland today. Its German population left or was expelled in 1945, and the lake on the reverse is the same lake.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 5 Pfennig, Stadt Lyck, 1920 in the collection.

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