30 Pfennig, Stadt Altona, 1921
Notgeld der Stadt Altona
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00797
- 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
- 94.6 × 65.2 mm (±2, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldSerienscheinWeimar RepublicHolsteinHamburgExpressionismWoodcut
The type
- Type
- 30 Pfennig, Stadt Altona, 1921
- Printer
- H. W. Köbner & Co., Altona
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
Dieser Schein wird 2 Wochen nach Aufruf im Altonaer Amts-Blatt ungültig
This note becomes void two weeks after it is called in, by notice in the Altona official gazette.
Symbology
- The church (shared reverse)
- A stylised Gothic church cut as a colour woodcut, shared by every value in the set. It carries the note's serial number, the Magistrat's facsimile signatures, the date "Altona-E., 12. Dezember 1921" and the line voiding the note two weeks after it is called in.
- Harbour and industry (obverse)
- An expressionist colour woodcut of the waterfront — cranes, sheds and craft reduced to angular blocks of colour — the Elbe harbour and industry on which Altona depended.
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: printed far beyond any local need and illustrated with whatever the place was proud of.
Altona sat on the Elbe immediately west of Hamburg — Danish until 1864, Prussian afterwards, and always Hamburg's close neighbour and commercial rival, until it was absorbed into Greater Hamburg in 1937/38. Its December 1921 emergency money is a single set of expressionist colour woodcuts, printed by the Altona firm H. W. Köbner & Co. and dated "Altona-E., 12. Dezember 1921". Every value shares a reverse — a stylised Gothic church cut in bold blocks of colour, carrying the serial, the Magistrat's facsimile signatures, the date and the warning that the note falls due two weeks after it is called in through the Altonaer Amts-Blatt. The obverses differ by denomination, each a woodcut view of the harbour city.
This thirty-Pfennig note carries an expressionist harbour and industrial scene — cranes, sheds and shipping cut in hard angular blocks, the working waterfront that Altona lived by. Companion notes in the set are [[notgeld-altona-40-pfennig]], [[notgeld-altona-20-pfennig]], [[notgeld-altona-60-pfennig]], [[notgeld-altona-70-pfennig]] and [[notgeld-altona-80-pfennig]].
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 30 Pfennig, Stadt Altona, 1921 in the collection.
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