100 Marks

Pick 3 is one of the more remarkable pieces of colonial emergency finance to survive from the First World War. When Allied forces landed in Kamerun in August 1914, the German colonial administration in Duala found itself cut off from the Reichsbank and facing an immediate liquidity crisis. These notes were produced locally — not by a professional security printer — in the days before the town fell to Anglo-French forces in late September 1914.

The entire series circulated for weeks at most. Duala was occupied on 27 September 1914, and the issuing authority ceased to exist shortly after. Surviving examples are almost certainly those that left circulation before the surrender rather than redeemed notes, since there was no functioning redemption mechanism.