75 Pfennig, Provincial Union of Westphalia, 1920

Gutschein des Provinzialverbandes Westfalen

Reverse of 75 Pfennig, Provincial Union of Westphalia, 1920 — Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession: OM-00495
Series year: 1920
Actually issued: 1920
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: AU (IBNS)
Bright, with the red cachet struck across the face; light corner wear. About uncurrent: bright and unfolded, with light handling - a corner bump or a faint edge tone. Estimated from the 600 dpi archival scan, which cannot show paper crispness, pinholes, pressing or small repairs.
Estimated value: $8 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
Dimensions: 106.3 × 70.1 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Emergency money Westphalia First World War War disabled Weimar Republic

The type

Type: 75 Pfennig, Provincial Union of Westphalia, 1920
Printer: Not established
Rarity: common

WestphaliaGermany, 1920 borders

Inscriptions

Obverse - the terms

Gutschein. Provinzialverband Westfalen. Kriegsbeschaedigter u. Kriegerhinterbliebener. Gegen Einlieferung dieses Gutscheines zahlt die Siedlungskassenverwaltung des Provinzialverbandes 75 Pfennig. Bochum im Mai 1920. Der Vorstand.

Voucher. Provincial Union of Westphalia. For the war-disabled and the dependants of the fallen. On surrender of this voucher the settlement fund office of the Provincial Union will pay 75 pfennig. Bochum, May 1920. The board.

Obverse - the appeal

Schafft Kriegerheimstaetten!

Build homesteads for the soldiers!

Symbology

The settlement cottage: A small house with a garden and a fruit tree - the *Kriegerheimstätte*, the thing the note was sold to pay for. A disabled man and a patch of land he could still work was the period's answer to a problem it had no other answer to.
The wounded man and the family: He stands in front of the house; inset beside him a woman and two children walk away down a lane. The two groups the fund existed for, drawn in one frame.
The battlefield: The reverse shows ranks of men advancing across open ground under a dark sky, with a single figure watching. Set against the cottage on the other face, the note makes its argument in two pictures and needs no text to do it.
Roses: The battlefield is framed in a border of red roses - mourning, and the only softness anywhere on the note.
A province, not a town: The Provinzialverband was the self-governing body of the Prussian province of Westphalia, with welfare among its responsibilities. This is emergency money doing social policy.

What was happening

This one is not a joke and not a souvenir. It was issued in May 1920 by the Provincial Union of Westphalia for the benefit of the war-disabled and the dependants of the fallen - für Kriegsbeschädigte und Kriegerhinterbliebene - and redeemed by the settlement fund office of the Provinzialverband against surrender of the note.

Across the foot of the face runs the purpose: Schafft Kriegerheimstätten! - build homesteads for the soldiers. The vignette shows a settlement cottage with a garden, a wounded man standing in front of it, and inset beside him a woman and two children walking away down a lane. The reverse is a battlefield, ranks of men in the open ground with a single soldier watching from the right, framed in red roses.

Germany came out of the war with something over two and a half million disabled men and far more widows and orphans. The settlement movement - giving a maimed soldier a house and a patch of land he could work - was one of the few answers anyone had, and this note was part of paying for it.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 75 Pfennig, Provincial Union of Westphalia, 1920 in the collection.

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