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20 Mark
| Issuer | Stadtrat Karlsruhe (City Council of Karlsruhe) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Haupt- und Residenzstadt Karlsruhe No [serial number] Gutschein über Zwanzig Mark Karlsruhe, 16. Oktober 1918. Der Stadtrat. Nur mit Trockenstempel gültig. |
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| Protection description | An embossed dry seal (Trockenstempel) applied to the obverse; the note is declared valid only when this seal is present, as stated by the inscription 'Nur mit Trockenstempel gültig'. |
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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.