50 Pfennig, Stadt Warin, 1922
Reutergeld der Stadt Warin
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00589
- Series year
- 1922
- Actually issued
- 1922
- 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.
- Dimensions
- 106 × 74 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicMecklenburg
The type
- Type
- 50 Pfennig, Stadt Warin, 1922
- Printer
- Bärensprungsche Hofbuchdruckerei, Schwerin
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- Hanging lantern
- A lantern slung on the face of the note, an old-town street motif of the kind Serienscheine used to evoke a cosy, bygone Germany.
- Large 50 PF
- The denomination in bold poster lettering, the clear graphic anchor of the lithographed design.
- Horse-and-shield scene (reverse)
- A horse set against a coat of arms under the caption Reutergeld der Stadt Warin, the pictorial reverse that gives the set its charm.
- Low German verse
- A Plattdeutsch verse, the dialect signature of the Reutergeld named for the poet Fritz Reuter.
What was happening
German Notgeld had, by the early 1920s, become a collectors craze as much as a currency. Towns printed lithographed Serienscheine in colourful sets, far beyond any local need, and sold them for real money to album-builders across the country. The result is a vast body of inventive paper money made by small places in the years the mark was dying. Warin, a modest Mecklenburg town between Schwerin and Wismar, issued its own in 1922 as the Reutergeld der Stadt Warin.
The name salutes Fritz Reuter (1810-1874), the Mecklenburg poet who wrote in Low German, and the notes duly carry Plattdeutsch verses in place of ordinary legends. They are orange lithographs put out by Der Rat der Stadt Warin and declared good für den Geldverkehr innerhalb der Stadtgemeinde bis zum 31. Mai 1922, with no serial numbers - only the design and the series letter identify them.
This fifty-Pfennig note sets a large 50 PF beside a hanging lantern and a Low German verse. The reverse turns to a horse-and-shield scene under the caption Reutergeld der Stadt Warin. It was printed, with the rest of the set, by the Bärensprungsche Hofbuchdruckerei in Schwerin, the court printing house of the Mecklenburg capital.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Stadt Warin, 1922 in the collection.
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