Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
20 Mark Celle PoW Camp
| Issuer | Offizier-Gefangenenlager Cellelager |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Mark (1873-1923) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Plain cream-coloured paper with a faint orange guilloche underprint bearing repeated denomination markings, centrally overprinted with the camp name "Cellelager" in bold black Fraktur script. The reverse is otherwise unadorned, with no border or additional text. |
| Reverse lettering | Cellelager |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Cellelager was one of the larger German officer prisoner-of-war camps of the First World War, and its internal currency was a practical administrative solution to a recognized problem: keeping Allied officers from accumulating Reichsmarks that could fund escape attempts. Camp scrip confined purchasing power to the canteen and kept hard currency out of prisoner hands.
Himmer of Augsburg was a competent commercial printer with no particular specialization in security printing, which shows — the production values are modest and forgery resistance minimal. That was accepted risk in a closed, supervised environment where the issuing authority could simply demonetize the series if abuse occurred.