Catalog
25 Kran Overprinted on German 10 Mark
| Issuer | Azerbaijan People's Government |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1917 |
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| Printer | Bundesdruckerei (Reichsdruckerei), Berlin, Germany (1879-date) |
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| Obverse lettering | Reichskassenschein. Zehn Mark. Berlin, den 6. Oktober 1906. REICHSSCHULDENVERWALTUNG. بیست و پنج قران |
| Reverse description | The reverse retains the original Reichskassenschein design in olive-green intaglio, centered on a large ornate vignette of the interlaced numeral '10' within a circular guilloche frame, flanked by two classical allegorical female figures standing on decorative pedestals. A bold letterpress panel carries the inscription 'Zehn Mark', with fine security text below. Red two-line Persian overprints 'بیست و پنج قران' and '۲۵ قران' appear in the upper-left and upper-right blank medallions respectively, with the serial prefix 'J·Nr' printed in black at top right and bottom left. |
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| Comments |
The Azerbaijan People's Government — a short-lived Soviet-backed administration established in Iranian Azerbaijan in late 1945 — had no printing infrastructure of its own. The solution was blunt: overprint captured or stockpiled German 10 Mark notes from the 1916–1917 Reichsbanknote series with a 25 Kran valuation. The exchange rate implied by the overprint bore little relationship to any functioning market; it was an administrative act, not a monetary one.
The original Reichsdruckerei notes were wartime issues, printed under the pressures of the First World War economy. That a note designed for Berlin commerce ended up recirculated in Tabriz under a separatist government thirty years later is the kind of trajectory no issuing authority anticipates.