Catalog
2 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Karlshafen |
|---|---|
| Year | |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Gebrüder Gotthelft, Cassel, Germany |
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| Obverse description | The obverse of this German Notgeld issue presents the denomination and issuing authority in bold letterpress typography against a lightly printed guilloche underprint. The central field carries the value inscription and the town name of Karlshafen within a decorative border typical of early twentieth-century municipal emergency currency. Text elements and ornamental framing conform to the restrained graphic style common to wartime and inflationary-period German local issues. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse carries the conditions of validity, legal text, and authorising signatures in letterpress print, framed within a decorative border consistent with the obverse design. Ornamental guilloche patterns form a background underprint providing a degree of visual security against reproduction. The layout follows the standard format employed by Gebrüder Gotthelft of Cassel for municipal Notgeld of this period. |
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| Comments |
Karlshafen — officially Bad Karlshafen since 1951 — is a small Weser river town in Hesse founded in 1699 by Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel specifically to settle Huguenot refugees. This Notgeld 2 Mark note is one of hundreds of municipally-issued emergency currency pieces produced across Germany during the acute coin shortage of 1917–1921, when metal was being diverted to the war effort and its aftermath. Gebrüder Gotthelft in Kassel was a prolific regional printer of such issues, supplying numerous small Hessian towns simultaneously.
The issuing authority here is the Stadt itself rather than a savings bank or commercial entity — a distinction that occasionally matters for redemption records.