Old Money Registry

50 Pfennig, Stadt Kirchheim unter Teck, 1918

Gutschein der Stadt Kirchheim unter Teck

Obverse 600 dpi
Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession
OM-00805
Series year
1918
Actually issued
1918
Signatures
This issue carries no bank manager or cashier signature.
Grade
XF (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.

Estimated value
$5.5 indicative

Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-10-24.

Dimensions
80.3 × 46 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes
NotgeldKriegsnotgeldWorld War IWürttembergSwabia

The type

Type
50 Pfennig, Stadt Kirchheim unter Teck, 1918
Printer
Gebr. Paschl, München
Rarity
common
Kirchheim unter TeckGermany, 1920 borders

Symbology

Town arms of Kirchheim unter Teck
The municipal arms identify the issuer. Kirchheim takes its name and its heraldry from the Teck, the hill-castle of the medieval dukes of Teck that overlooks the town.
Validity clause "bis 6 Monate nach Friedensschluß"
The note was to remain legal tender only until six months after peace was concluded - wartime emergency money designed from the outset to stop being money once coin returned to circulation.

What was happening

Notgeld - "emergency money" - began in 1914, not as a collector's craze but out of hard necessity. Within weeks of mobilisation the small silver and copper coin disappeared: people hoarded metal, and the Reichsbank could not supply enough change for daily trade. Towns, districts and firms stepped in and printed their own low-value notes to keep shops and wage packets working. This early, austere wartime money is called Kriegsnotgeld to distinguish it from the lavishly illustrated collector Serienscheine that flooded out after 1920.

Kirchheim unter Teck is a Württemberg town in the foreland of the Swabian Alb, named for the Teck - the ruined hill-castle of the dukes of Teck that rises above it. Long a market and weaving town on the roads between the Neckar and the Alb, it issued this 50-Pfennig note on 19 September 1918, in the last autumn of the war, when the coin shortage was at its worst.

The note is plain and functional: the town arms, the value in Fraktur, and two signatures - the Stadtschultheiß (the mayor, in the old Württemberg title) and the chairman of the citizens' committee (Bürgerausschußobmann). Like most wartime municipal notes it was declared valid only "bis 6 Monate nach Friedensschluß" - until six months after the conclusion of peace - so that it would cease to be money once normal coin returned. It was lithographed by Gebr. Paschl in Munich.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Pfennig, Stadt Kirchheim unter Teck, 1918 in the collection.

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