Catalog
1/2 Mark
| Issuer | Handelskammer des Memelgebiets (Chamber of Commerce of the Memel Territory) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1922 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Notgeld der Handelskammer des Memelgebiets 1/2 - Fünfzig Pfennig - 1/2 Mark - Mark Autorisé: Memel le 22 Février 1922 - Ungültig drei Monate nach Abruf Le Haut-Commissaire Représentant des Puissances Alliées (Translation: Authorized: Memel, February 22, 1922, the High Commissioner Representative of the Allied Powers) |
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| Protection description | No watermark. |
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| Comments |
The Memel Territory — a strip of Lithuania Minor seized from Germany under the Versailles Treaty and placed under French administration in 1920 — had no functioning currency framework of its own. When coins disappeared from circulation and the French administrators failed to provide small denomination substitutes, local institutions stepped in. The Chamber of Commerce issued this notgeld series in 1922 to fill the gap, just months before Lithuania seized the territory by force in January 1923, rendering the entire emission effectively obsolete almost immediately.
Gebrüder Parcus in Munich was a competent commercial printer with notgeld experience, and the watermarked paper gives this issue more production quality than most emergency municipal scrip of the period.