50 Pfennig, Gemeinde Ilsenburg, 1921

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 town could take real marks for paper it hoped would never be presented. So the municipalities commissioned Serienscheine: lithographed sets, printed far beyond any local need, illustrated with whatever the place was proud of - a legend, a famous son, a battle, a joke in dialect. The result is the most inventive body of graphic design in the history of paper money, made by places with a few thousand inhabitants, in the years when Germany's currency was dying.

Ilsenburg lies at the foot of the Brocken on the northern Harz, and its June 1921 note has an unusually long life - valid until 1 January 1923. The face shows a wild man of the woods between two wreaths of hops and fir; the reverse the castle and the abbey church among trees.