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25 Pfennig
| Issuer | Stadt Westerburg (City of Westerburg) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918-1920 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Printed in red-brown with black letterpress text, the note carries the Westerburg municipal coat of arms as a vignette at the upper left. The denomination '25 Pfennig' appears at the center right, with the issuing authority inscription and date rendered in black. A red serial number and an official red validation stamp of the Magistrat complete the face. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in red-brown throughout, with a central guilloche rosette of octagonal and diamond-shaped interlocking geometric forms set against a wavy-line underprint background. The numeral '25' is rendered in large, stylized figures at the center of the rosette, serving as the sole denomination indicator on this side. |
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| Comments |
Westerburg is a small town in the Westerwald, and like thousands of German municipalities it resorted to Notgeld — emergency small-change scrip — when the wartime coin shortage made ordinary transactions impossible. The metal had gone into cartridge casings. By 1918, pfennig denominations had effectively vanished from circulation nationwide, and even minor transactions required improvised solutions from whoever held a printing press.
The tiny format here is not a design choice — it reflects the economics of scrip printing, where municipalities paid per sheet and cut costs accordingly.