50 Pfennig, Stadt Kahla, 1921
Gutschein der Stadt Kahla S.-A.
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00709
- Series year
- 1921
- Actually issued
- 1921
- Signatures
- This issue carries no bank manager or cashier signature.
- 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 2026-10-24.
- Dimensions
- 112 × 69.9 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicThuringiaWar memorialLeuchtenburg
The type
- Type
- 50 Pfennig, Stadt Kahla, 1921
- Printer
- C. Schröter, Leipzig
- Rarity
- common
Symbology
- The design
- It shows a facsimile of **Hindenburg's** own hand: *dass Blut aller derer, die im Glauben an das Vaterland ihr Leben hingegeben haben, darf nicht vergebens geflossen sein* - the blood of all those who gave their lives believing in the fatherland must not have flowed in vain.
- Hindenburg's autograph
- Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934). Reproduced in full, signature and all, on a seventy-five-Pfennig note. Hindenburg was then in retirement — he had commanded the German armies in the Great War — and already the most venerated figure in Germany; he would be elected President in 1925 and remain in office until his death. Emergency money as political devotion.
- Zum Ehrenmal umgebildete Leuchtenburg
- "The Leuchtenburg, remade as a memorial." The reverse shows the castle above the town, converted after the war into a monument to Kahla's dead.
- Ausgabe and Verfall
- The face states both the day of issue and the day it dies - 15 September 1921 and 31 December 1921. Fifteen weeks of life, printed on the note itself.
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.
Kahla lies on the Saale below the Leuchtenburg, a hilltop castle the town turned into a war memorial after 1918. Its 1921 notes were issued in September, expired at the end of December, and are dedicated der Stadt Kahla gewidmet - a gift to the town, which is a curious thing for money to say.
This note shows a facsimile of Hindenburg's own hand: dass Blut aller derer, die im Glauben an das Vaterland ihr Leben hingegeben haben, darf nicht vergebens geflossen sein - the blood of all those who gave their lives believing in the fatherland must not have flowed in vain.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Stadt Kahla, 1921 in the collection.
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