Catalog
1 Mark Ortskohlenstelle
| Issuer | Ortskohlenstelle Braunschweig (City of Brunswick) |
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| Year | |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Cream-toned notgeld voucher printed in dark brown and orange, with a decorative dotted border running along both vertical edges. The denomination numeral "1" appears as a large orange underprint at centre, overlaid by the ornate Gothic-script title "Gutschein" at top and the value inscription "Eine Mark" in bold Fraktur lettering. A red circular official stamp of the Ortskohlenstelle Braunschweig, bearing a lion vignette, is applied at lower right, with the issuing authority text and redemption instruction printed below. |
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| Obverse lettering | Gutschein über Eine Mark zum Bezuge von Brennstoffen Stadt Braunschweig Der Rat der Stadt Ortskohlenstelle Braunschweig (in the red circle) Dieser Schein ist von den Kohlenhandlern bei der Ortskohlenstelle einzureichen (Translation: Voucher for one mark for fuel procurement City of Brunswick The City Council Local coal station Braunschweig (in the red circle) This certificate must be submitted by the coal dealers to the local coal office) |
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| Comments |
Ortskohlenstelle notes occupy a strange corner of German emergency money history. These were not issued by a municipality in the conventional Notgeld sense, but by a local coal distribution office — a wartime and postwar administrative body responsible for rationing fuel. The Braunschweig coal office issued scrip to facilitate transactions within its own supply chain, a purely functional instrument with no pretense of broader monetary ambition.
The 1 Mark denomination suggests early postwar issuance, before hyperinflation rendered small-value paper meaningless. Few of these coal office issues were preserved by collectors, since they lacked the decorative printing that made Notgeld fashionable.