50 Pfennig, Stadt Nordhausen, 1921 (chewing tobacco)

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.

Nordhausen am Harz was a free imperial city, famous for two things it still trades on - its grain spirit (Nordhaeuser Korn) and its chewing tobacco. Its 1921 Notgeld, dated 1 May and redeemable three months after a public call, carries the town's buildings and worthies; the Gutschein text, the serial and the Roland figure sit on the obverse.

This note shows a man cutting a plug of chewing tobacco under the dialect boast Nordhaeuser Priem aess waeltberiehmt, daer kenner keinen andern priemt - Nordhausen chew is world-famous, and whoever has it chews nothing else.