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20 Pfennig Alte Diele
| Issuer | Alte Diele, Hamburg-St. Pauli |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 20 Pfennigs (20 Pfennige) (0.20) |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Brown on buff paper. The central design is dominated by a large elliptical guilloche frame bearing the issuer's name 'ALTE DIELE' in bold capitals, enclosing a central oval cartouche with the numeral '20' and the denomination 'PFENNIG'. The four corners each carry circular vignettes with the numeral '20', and the denomination 'PFENNIG' appears in large serif lettering along both the top and bottom of the note. Flanking the central cartouche are two columns of advertising verse text in German, with the issuer's location 'HAMBURG-ST. PAULI' inscribed in an arc along the lower portion of the ellipse. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Brown on buff paper. The reverse carries a humorous genre vignette in a linear engraving style, depicting two figures in period costume — a stout gentleman in a top hat and a shorter man in a cap carrying a satchel — engaged in conversation. A Low German dialect quotation is printed above the scene in three lines. The denomination numeral '20' appears within a dotted circular frame in the upper right corner, and the note's expiry notice is printed in a single line of serif type along the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
Hamburg's St. Pauli district generated an enormous volume of Notgeld during the early 1920s inflation spiral, and local businesses — restaurants, taverns, inns — issued their own small-denomination scrip when coin shortages made everyday transactions nearly impossible. Alte Diele was among them. These pieces circulated as genuine spending money within the issuer's immediate commercial orbit, redeemable at the counter rather than at any bank.
The 1921 date places this squarely in the early phase, before hyperinflation rendered pfennig-denominated notes worthless within months of printing.