50 Pfennig, Fallersleben, 1920

This copy

Accession: OM-00749
Series year: 1920
Actually issued: 1920
Signatures: This issue carries no bank manager or cashier signature.
Grade: VF (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. Grade applied uniformly across this batch pending individual review.
Estimated value: $3 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-10-24.
Dimensions: 81.6 × 56 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
Themes: Notgeld Serienschein Weimar Republic Lower Saxony Poetry Hoffmann von Fallersleben

The type

Type: 50 Pfennig, Fallersleben, 1920
Printer: Druckerei Appelhans, Braunschweig
Rarity: common

FallerslebenGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit: "Unity and justice and freedom." The third stanza, and since 1952 the only one sung. In 1920 it was not yet the anthem: the town was quoting a poet, not a state.
The poet's birthplace: A long low house on the village street, still standing and now a museum.
Two towns, one poet: Fallersleben has his birth and Höxter his grave; both put him on their money within a year of each other, and this collection holds both.

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.

Fallersleben is where Hoffmann von Fallersleben (1798–1874) was born, and its note is his monument. The face carries the third verse of the Lied der Deutschen - Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland - and the reverse his portrait beside the house he was born in, captioned Geburtshaus des Dichters.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Fallersleben, 1920 in the collection.

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