2 Mark, Hamburger Bürger-Militär, 1921 (Artillerie)

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 note could be printed for no other purpose than to be sold to collectors. This one says so on its face - nur für Sammelzwecke, for collecting purposes only - a Hamburg set of city views and old-time soldiery marked simply "Notgeld Hamburg" and dated "Hamburg,

1. Juli 1921." It belongs with the companion piece [[notgeld-hamburg-50-pfennig-buergermilitaer]].

The obverse shows an oval view of the Hamburg Rathaus (town hall) with a sailboat before it and the value "2 Mark." The reverse depicts a rank of the Hamburger Bürger-Militär (Artillerie) - the artillery of the old Hamburg citizens' militia. The citizens' militia (Bürgergarde / Bürgermilitär) was a civic force of the city's own burghers, raised in the Napoleonic period and active through the nineteenth century - it turned out at the great fire of 1842 and in the revolution of 1848 - until it was dissolved in 1868, as Hamburg's separate military arrangements gave way to those of the North German Confederation. The note recalls its parade companies a half-century on.