Types / 1922
1 Mark, Bad Neuenahr A.-G. Bank-Abteilung, 1922 (der Zauberquell)
Scheck — Bad-Neuenahr A.-G., Bank-Abt.
What was happening
Not a municipal voucher but a private bearer cheque. Bad Neuenahr in the Ahr valley was a fashionable nineteenth-century spa, its waters marketed for diabetes and digestive complaints and its name tied to the Apollinaris mineral spring bottled commercially from the 1870s. The resort was run as a joint-stock company — the Bad-Neuenahr A.-G. — with its own Kurdirektion and bank department, and it was this bank department that printed the emergency money, in the form of Schecks drawn on its own account for the convenience of the Kurgäste rather than municipal notes drawn on a treasury.
The front carries the resort's eagle-and-"BN"-monogram arms and the undertaking Zahle gegen diesen Scheck aus unserm Guthaben an den Inhaber Mk. 1 — pay the bearer one mark from our balance — dated Neuenahr, 1 März 1922, valid until 31 December 1922, marked Reihe 1. The front is shared across the set; what distinguishes each Scheck is the coloured woodcut on the back, a little advertisement for the healing spring. This one, Reihe 1, Scheck 4, shows a sick man restored as he drinks at the fountain while a woman draws the water, under the couplet Und alles Kranke heilt fürwahr der Zauberquell in Neuenahr — "and truly the magic spring in Neuenahr heals all that is sick." Its companion is [[notgeld-bad-neuenahr-1-mark-warmquell]]; see also the 2 Mark value, [[notgeld-bad-neuenahr-2-mark]].