50 Pfennig, Stadt Luebbecke, 1921

By 1920 German Notgeld had stopped being a response to a coin shortage and become a collector's product. Towns, districts and firms commissioned decorative Serienscheine - lithographed sets printed far beyond any local need and sold to collectors, illustrated with whatever the place was proud of: a legend, a famous son, a battle, a trade, a joke in dialect. The result is the most inventive body of graphic design in the history of paper money, made in the years when Germany's currency was dying.

Luebbecke lies on the northern edge of Westphalia below the Wiehengebirge. Its 50-Pfennig notes carry the verses of the Westfalenlied, the Westphalia anthem, a stanza to a note; this is verse 2. The obverse shows the town arms - crossed keys and a star under a mural crown - and the undertaking that the municipal savings bank will redeem the note, void a month after it is called in. Issued July 1921, serial M 028712.