50 Pfennig, Stadt Colditz, 1921 (Heimatturm)

Notgeld - "emergency money" - began in 1914 when metal coin vanished into hoards and German towns printed their own small change. By 1920 it had become a collector's craze: municipalities commissioned Serienscheine, lithographed sets printed far beyond local need and illustrated with the town's legends, landmarks and views, sold to collectors for real marks the town hoped never to repay.

Colditz is a Saxon town on the river Mulde between Leipzig and Chemnitz, below a Renaissance castle later infamous as the wartime prison Oflag IV-C. Beyond the castle, the wooded Mulde valley around the town was prized local scenery, and the 1921 Serienschein devotes several of its backs to it rather than to battles.

The notes share a cream-and-red front - Gutschein über 50 Pf, the Colditz castle-gate arms with their lion, Stadt Colditz Sachsen and the validity line Gültig bis auf Widerruf - and differ in the scene on the back. This note shows a tower by the water captioned Heimatturm bei Colditz, a local landmark overlooking the river, with a verse in praise of the home country. Its siblings in the collection are the Swedish-war note [[notgeld-colditz-50-pfennig-schweden]], the Hussite note [[notgeld-colditz-50-pfennig-husiten]], the stoneware note [[notgeld-colditz-50-pfennig-steingut]], the town-hall note [[notgeld-colditz-50-pfennig-rathaus]] and the Mulde-valley note [[notgeld-colditz-50-pfennig-muldental]].