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2 Mark
| Issuer | Swakopmunder Buchhandlung |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1918 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | German South West African Mark (1885-1915) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Plain card stock with a repeated letterpress underprint reading 'SWAKOPMUNDERBUCHHANDLUNG' across the entire field. Central text reads 'Gutschein über ZWEI MARK' in bold Gothic letterpress. Issuer name 'Swakopmunder Buchhandlung Ges. m. b. H.' appears below, with two manuscript signatures over the titles 'Geschäftsführer' and 'Filialleiter'; a serial number box is positioned at upper right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
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| Protection type | Impressed texture |
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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.