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!
25 Pfennig
| Issuer | Swakopmunder Buchhandlung |
|---|---|
| Year | 1916-1918 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 25 Pfennig |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Gutschein Fünfundzwanzig Pf. Swakopmunder Buchhandlung Ges. m. b. H. Geschäftsführer Filialleiter |
| Reverse description | Unprinted reverse on plain paper with a fine grid-pattern texture visible throughout. A small floral ornament is present at the upper left corner, and faint ghosting of the obverse text is visible through the thin stock. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| 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 |
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.