Catalog
1 Mark
| Issuer | Swakopmunder Buchhandlung |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1918 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Gutschein (voucher) issued by the Swakopmund Bookshop, with Series designation "Edition B" at upper right. The note bears a dense letterpress text pattern forming a guilloche-like underprint across the entire field, with the denomination and issuer details in the central inscription. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Reverse entirely covered by a dense, uniform letterpress typographic underprint composed of continuous lines of mixed text, serving as an anti-counterfeiting guilloche substitute. The overall field presents a fine brown-on-cream pattern with no central vignette. |
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| Comments |
The Swakopmunder Buchhandlung — a bookshop and stationery business in Swakopmund — issued its own emergency currency during the First World War because it had to. After South African forces took German South West Africa in 1915, the territory's financial infrastructure collapsed and small change became scarce almost immediately. Local merchants stepped in with privately printed Notgeld to keep commerce moving.
These are among the most geographically remote privately issued notes of the entire war. Printed on the spot by the same press that handled the shop's commercial stationery, they were redeemable only at the issuing establishment — a limitation that did little to discourage wider circulation in a town that had few alternatives.