25 Pfennig, Stadt Freiburg in Schlesien, 1921 (before the fire)

By 1921 Notgeld had turned from wartime necessity into a collectors' market. Coin had vanished into hoards in 1914 and towns printed their own small change to replace it, but with the shortage easing an issuer could still take real marks for paper it hoped would never be redeemed. Towns, firms and clubs commissioned lithographed Serienscheine - sets printed far beyond local need and illustrated with whatever a place was proud of.

Freiburg in Schlesien - today Świebodzice in south-western Poland - is a small Lower Silesian town below the wooded heights of Schloss Fürstenstein (Książ), the great seat of the Hochberg family. Like many timber-built Silesian towns it burned repeatedly; town histories record serious fires in the 17th and 18th centuries. The town issued a September 1921 set of 25- and 50-Pfennig notes printed by Grube & Schneider of Freiburg. Its sister notes include [[notgeld-freiburg-schlesien-25-pfennig-handwerk]], [[notgeld-freiburg-schlesien-25-pfennig-stadtansicht]] and [[notgeld-freiburg-schlesien-25-pfennig-weber]].

This 25-Pfennig note shows an old view of the town captioned Anno 1700 - Freiburg Silesia vor dem Brande ("before the fire"), recalling the appearance of Freiburg before one of the great town fires. The 1700 date is as given on the note; the exact fire it commemorates is not independently confirmed here.