Catalog
2 Mark
| Issuer | Swakopmunder Buchhandlung |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1918 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Gutschein über Zwei Mark Swakopmunder Buchhandlung Ges. m. b. H. Geschäftsführer Filialleiter SWAKOPMUNDERBUCHHANDLUNG |
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| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Cardboard stock with an impressed linen texture pattern on the surface. |
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| Comments |
The Swakopmunder Buchhandlung — a bookshop and stationery business in Swakopmund — became an unlikely issuer of emergency currency after South African forces occupied German South West Africa in 1915. With the German colonial administration gone and coinage scarce, local businesses stepped in. The Buchhandlung's notgeld series was produced on cardboard, almost certainly from stock the shop already held, and the impressed texture served as a rudimentary anti-counterfeiting measure in a town small enough that forgery was a social rather than technical problem.
By 1918, German Southwest Africa was under full South African administration. Any of these notes still outstanding at that point had no redemption path worth counting on.