50 Pfennig, Dorfgemeinde Oppurg, 1921 (the church)
Notgeld der Dorfgemeinde Oppurg
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00762
- Series year
- 1921
- Actually issued
- 1921
- 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
- 94.7 × 66.3 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicThuringia
The type
- Type
- 50 Pfennig, Dorfgemeinde Oppurg, 1921 (the church)
- Printer
- Tageblattdruckerei, Pössneck
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
Kirche erb. 1694
Church, built 1694
Symbology
- The village church and the tree (reverse)
- The Oppurg parish church, captioned as built in 1694, drawn beside a large tree - the ordinary centre of a Thuringian village.
- Sunburst behind the town arms (obverse)
- The shared front of the three-note set: rays spreading behind the arms of Oppurg. Only the paper colour and the reverse scene change from note to note.
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. 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.
Oppurg is a village in Thuringia on the Orla, just below Pössneck, best known for its Wasserschloss - a moated manor-house. Even a village of its size issued a little set of three notes: all share the same obverse, a sunburst behind the town arms, and each differs in the colour of its paper and in the scene on its back. The notes were printed at the Tageblatt press in Pössneck and dated "Oppurg, 1. Aug. 1921."
This 50 Pfennig value shows on its reverse the village church beside a great tree, captioned "Kirche erb. 1694" - the parish church built in 1694. See the two companion notes, the [[notgeld-oppurg-50-pfennig-tuerkenhof]] and the [[notgeld-oppurg-75-pfennig-schlossturm]].
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Dorfgemeinde Oppurg, 1921 (the church) in the collection.
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