50 Pfennig, Notgeld of Ilmenau, 1921

Notgeld — "emergency money". German towns, districts and firms began printing their own small change in 1914 when metal coin vanished into hoards, and never really stopped until the 1923 stabilisation.

What began as necessity became a craze. By 1921 municipalities were commissioning Serienscheine — beautifully lithographed series aimed squarely at collectors, printed in quantities far beyond any local need, showing local legends, landmarks and jokes in dialect. Selling them to collectors was itself a way of raising money: the town received real marks for notes it hoped would never be redeemed.

The result is the most inventive body of graphic design in the history of paper money, produced by places with a few thousand inhabitants.