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2 Mark Zoologischer Garten, imprint on obverse
| Issuer | Zoologischer Garten Hamburg |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Designer(s) | O. Herrfurth |
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| Obverse description | Ochre-toned note with a black ruled border enclosing the denomination 'Zwei Mark' in large Gothic script across the upper portion, flanked by two monkeys seated at the upper corners. Two crocodiles are rendered in pen-and-ink style at the lower left and lower right, framing a central white panel containing the issuing text. The printer's imprint 'Hartung & Co. m.b.H., Hamburg' appears below the outer border. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A whimsical allegorical vignette, signed by the artist O. Herrfurth in the lower right, occupies the upper three-quarters of the reverse, rendered in a caricature style with ochre and brown tones. The scene portrays a procession of anthropomorphized zoo animals — including bears, monkeys, an elephant, a giraffe, a rhinoceros, and cattle — paying court to an enthroned lion and bear wearing royal crowns. Below the vignette, a four-line German verse is set in Gothic Fraktur script, flanked on either side by denomination cartouches reading '2 Mark' in blue and ochre. |
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| Comments |
Hartung & Co. was a Hamburg commercial printer with no particular specialty in security printing, which shows in the relatively simple execution of this note. The designer O. Herrfurth — best known for illustrating children's books and fairy tales — was an odd but locally logical choice for a zoo-issued piece, and his involvement here is one of the more curious pairings of artist to subject in German notgeld.
Over twelve million printed makes this one of the higher-circulation Hamburg zoo notgeld issues, reflecting both the acute small-change shortage of 1921 and the institution's role as a genuine local economic actor during that period.