50 Pfennig, Sparkasse zu Lilienthal, 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.

Lilienthal lies in the peat moors north-east of Bremen, and the note is issued not by the commune but by its savings bank - described on the face as mündelsicher, of a standard fit to hold a ward's money, which is the strongest thing a German savings bank can say about itself.

The Low German line across the reverse is the moor's whole philosophy: wer de Hann nich leggt in'n Schoot, wahnt hier ok in't Moor ganz good - he who does not fold his hands in his lap lives well enough here in the moor too.