25 Mark, Stadtsparkasse Bielefeld, 1921 (linen)

By 1920 German Notgeld had stopped being a response to a coin shortage and become a collector's product. Towns, districts and firms commissioned decorative Serienscheine - lithographed sets printed far beyond any local need and sold to collectors, illustrated with whatever the place was proud of: a legend, a famous son, a battle, a trade, a joke in dialect. The result is the most inventive body of graphic design in the history of paper money, made in the years when Germany's currency was dying.

Bielefeld made the most famous Stoffgeld - money printed on cloth - of the whole inflation. The city had grown rich on linen, so when its municipal savings bank issued notgeld for the 700th anniversary of the town (1221-1921) it printed it on local linen and, later, silk. This 25-Mark note, dated 15 July 1921 and good in the district of Halle until the start of April 1922, is woven in red, blue and black with a winged Victory, Prussian soldiers and the triumph of 1814 (Von Paris nach Berlin), framed by satirical verses in the margins. E. Gundlach A.G. of Bielefeld printed them, and they became collectors' pieces almost before the ink was dry.