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1 Mark
| Issuer | Graasten (Gravenstein), Municipality of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
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| Currency | Mark (1914-1924) |
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| Obverse description | The left panel carries a colourful vignette of a white civic building with a tall flagpole from which the Danish Dannebrog flies, surrounded by a group of figures in period dress celebrating beneath it, all framed within a blue scroll border and dated '10. FEBR. 1920' at the foot. To the right, the denomination '1 Mark' is set in bold gothic blackletter within a blue guilloche band beneath the heading 'NØDPENCE-FOR-GRAASTEN'. Below, a validity clause in Danish script is followed by the manuscript signature of the town's representative and the place-and-date imprint 'Graasten, Februar 1920' with a printed serial number. |
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| Reverse lettering | GRAASTEN 19 20 A. Ritscher, Graasten. |
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| Comments |
Graasten's 1 Mark notgeld dates to the plebiscite period following World War I, when the border between Germany and Denmark had not yet been formally redrawn. The town voted to remain in Germany in the February 1920 Zone II referendum but was ultimately assigned to Denmark anyway under the final boundary settlement — meaning this note was issued by a municipality whose national identity was, at that precise moment, genuinely unresolved.
Printed locally by A. Ritscher, the note is a product of the acute small-change shortage that drove hundreds of German and German-administered towns to produce their own emergency currency in this period. Graasten's series is among the rarer Danish-territory notgeld issues precisely because the window of validity was so short.