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25 Pfennig
| Issuer | Swakopmunder Buchhandlung |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1918 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Plain cartouche with dotted guilloche border enclosing the text "Gutschein" at upper left and a serial number box at upper right. The denomination "Fünfundzwanzig Pf." is printed in large letterpress across the centre, with the issuer name below. Two manuscript signatures appear at the foot, with printed role designations "Geschäftsführer" and "Filialleiter" beneath them. |
|---|---|
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| Variants | P#8a - 2 handwritten signatures P#8b - 1 facsimile signature |
| Comments |
The Swakopmunder Buchhandlung — a bookshop and stationery business in Swakopmund — became an unlikely currency issuer because it had to. After South African forces occupied German South West Africa in 1915, the territory's monetary infrastructure collapsed. German marks were no longer reliably accepted, and small change of any kind was acutely scarce. Local merchants improvised, and the Buchhandlung printed its own notgeld on whatever paper stock it had available.
That a bookshop's emergency scrip survived long enough to be catalogued is itself worth noting — most of these improvised issues were redeemed locally and destroyed, leaving very few examples in collector hands today.