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20 Mark
| Issuer | Stadtrat Karlsruhe (City Council of Karlsruhe) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 20 Mark |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in green and ochre-brown on cream paper. The left panel contains a diamond-shaped vignette within an octagonal frame, showing a view of a Karlsruhe city square with a pyramid monument and classical colonnaded building in fine letterpress engraving, flanked by four denomination numerals '20' in brown corner cartouches. The right panel carries the issuing authority legend at top, a red serial number, the denomination in bold Fraktur script, the date 'Karlsruhe, 16. Oktober 1918', the authority line 'Der Stadtrat', a manuscript signature with an embossed dry seal, and a validity notice at foot — all set against a geometric guilloche underprint. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | 20 Stadt Karlsruhe Wer Papiergeld nachmacht oder verfälscht oder nachgemachtes oder verfälschtes sich verschafft, wird gemäß § 149 RStGB. bestraft. Zwanzig Mark Die Scheine werden von den städtischen Kassen zum vollen Nennwert in Zahlung genommen und spätestens 1. Februar 1919 zur Einziehung und Einlösung aufgerufen. C. F. Müllersche Hofbuchdruckerei, Karlsruhe |
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| Comments |
Karlsruhe's city council, like hundreds of German municipal authorities in the final year of the First World War, issued this note to address the acute shortage of Reichsbank currency in local circulation — a problem that had been worsening since 1914 as metal coinage disappeared and central bank notes failed to reach smaller communities in sufficient quantities. This wave of municipal emergency money, Notgeld in the strict sense, was legally tolerated rather than officially sanctioned.
C. F. Müllersche Hofbuchdruckerei was the Baden court printer, based in Karlsruhe itself. Local printing was the norm for this type — the logistics of wartime made contracting to distant security printers impractical. The embossed dry seal substituted for the intaglio security printing that a peacetime issuer might have demanded.