75 Pfennig, Stadt Itzehoe, 1921 (Wat mutt, dat mutt)
Notgeld der Stadt Itzehoe
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00572
- Series year
- 1921
- Actually issued
- 1921
- Signatures
- This issue carries no bank manager or cashier signature.
- Grade
- UNC (IBNS)
Estimated from the archival scan. Folds, soiling and edge condition are visible at this resolution; paper crispness, pinholes, small repairs and pressing are not.
- Estimated value
- $10 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-10-09.
- Dimensions
- 101.8 × 69 mm (±2.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinSchleswig-HolsteinLow GermanInflation pricesExpressionismWeimar Republic
The type
- Type
- 75 Pfennig, Stadt Itzehoe, 1921 (Wat mutt, dat mutt)
- Printer
- Gedruckt W. Gente, Hamburg; designed by Wenzel August Hablik
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
Notgeld der Stadt Itzehoe. Diese Anweisung verliert ihre Gültigkeit am 30ten September des Jahres 1921. Die Einlösung der Scheine erfolgt an der Hauptkasse in Itzehoe. Der Magistrat: Erster Bürgermeister.
Emergency money of the town of Itzehoe. This note loses its validity on 30 September 1921. The notes are redeemed at the main treasury in Itzehoe. The magistrate: First Mayor.
Symbology
- The rooster and "Wat mutt, dat mutt"
- A crowing cock over a Low-German proverb — "what must be, must be" — paired with "it may be no gold, but it is money". Self-aware Notgeld humour in the local dialect, defending the scrip in the reader's own hand.
- The 1913/1921 price list
- Pre-war against post-war prices for coal, wood, petroleum, gas and soap, printed side by side: the inflation made visible on the money itself — the note explaining why it had to exist.
- Wenzel Hablik's design
- The note is genuine artist's work by a leading Expressionist, not a jobbing printer's layout — one reason this otherwise common series is collected.
What was happening
Itzehoe is a market town on the Stör in Holstein, one of the oldest settlements in the region. This 75-Pfennig note is a Serienschein of 1921, and an unusually good one, because it was designed by Wenzel August Hablik (1881–1934) — a significant German Expressionist painter, architect and designer who settled in Itzehoe in 1907 and died there. Hablik belonged to Bruno Taut's utopian "Glass Chain" circle and is famous for visionary crystalline architecture; the town's Wenzel-Hablik-Museum holds his estate. He signed this note "Gez. W. A. Hablik, Itzehoe".
One face is pure graphic bravado: a great crowing rooster over the Low-German mottoes "Wat mutt, dat mutt" ("what must be, must be") and "Ist ok keen Gold, is dat doch Geld!" ("it may be no gold, but it is money"), a wry defence of paper emergency money. The other face is a dense typographic panel — "NOTGELD DER STADT ITZEHOE", the value, a serial number, the first mayor's signature, and the validity to 30 September 1921 — wrapped around a price list headed Es kosteten … in Itzehoe: 1913 / 1921, comparing the pre-war and post-war cost of coal, wood, petroleum, gas, soap and the like. A hundred kilograms of coal that cost 3.60 marks in 1913 cost 68 in 1921.
That "then and now" price list is a recognised sub-genre of inflation Notgeld: part civic commentary on what the money had come to, part sales gimmick for the collectors who bought these notes. Printed by W. Gente of Hamburg.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 75 Pfennig, Stadt Itzehoe, 1921 (Wat mutt, dat mutt) in the collection.
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