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20 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Gießen (City of Giessen) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is laid out on a tan cross-hatched underprint framed by a brown border. At centre, a circular vignette enclosed by a green laurel wreath — with the letters of 'Giessen' interspersed on a white ribbon — presents a letterpress townscape view of Gießen with a church steeple and rooftops beneath a clouded sky. The denomination 'Zwanzig Mark' is rendered in bold red Fraktur script across the upper field, flanked left by the validity inscription 'Gültig bis 1. Februar 1919' and right by the redemption notice 'Verlängerung der Einlösungsfrist bleibt vorbehalten', with the date 'Gießen, 1. Nov. 1918', the issuing authority 'Der Oberbürgermeister', and a manuscript signature at lower right. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | Kriegs-Notgeld Stadt Gießen |
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| Comments |
Gießen's municipal administration issued this Kriegsgeld note under the emergency currency provisions that proliferated across German cities and towns during the final year of the war, when Reichsbank coin and small-denomination notes were hopelessly inadequate for daily commerce. Stadt Gießen was one of hundreds of civic issuers scrambling to fill the gap with locally authorized paper.
Brühl was a local Gießen printing house — not a specialist security printer — which is typical of the corner-cutting that defines Notgeld from this period. The paper and printing quality reflect it.