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20 Mark - Hamburg
| Issuer | M. H. Wilkens & Söhne A. G., Hamburg |
|---|---|
| Year | 1922 |
| Type | Emergency coin |
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| Obverse description | The obverse displays a whimsical scene in low relief within a scalloped inner border, depicting two figures in a playful confrontation: a woman in a full-skirted dress and a larger, armoured or heavily-clad male figure facing her. In the left field, a stylised silhouette of the Hamburg cityscape with its distinctive church spires rises above water. The legend, rendered in a deliberately mirrored or reversed Low German script arranged along the lower portion of the field, reads: KEEN · SÜLBER · IS · NVN · SÜLBSTEN · GLATT MOK · WAT · VT · DI - DENN · BÜST DV WAT!, a humorous Hamburgian dialect motto meaning 'No silver is now smooth by itself — make something of it — then you are something!' |
|---|---|
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| Obverse lettering | KEEN · SÜLBER · IS · NVN · SÜLBSTEN · GLATT MOK · WAT · VT · DI - DENN · BÜST DV WAT! |
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| Additional information |
M. H. Wilkens & Söhne was a Bremen-based silverware manufacturer, not a mint — its Hamburg branch produced this piece as a privately issued notgeld token during the acute coin shortage that followed Germany's postwar economic collapse. Municipal and corporate bodies across Germany filled the void left by official coinage in 1921–22, and Wilkens was among the more prolific private issuers of silver emergency money in the north. These pieces circulated locally and were often redeemed quickly, making well-preserved survivors less common than their original issue numbers suggest.