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25 Pfennig
| Issuer | Städte Ruhla (City of Ruhla) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | The note is printed in brown and green on a light background with a fine guilloche underprint of scattered short strokes in pale blue-green. A decorative brown floral and geometric border frames the entire face. To the left, two circular vignettes are stacked vertically: the upper one bears a heraldic device, the lower one a circular town seal reading "GEMEINDE RUHLA" around a central star motif. The denomination numeral "25" appears in large green Gothic script at the lower left, while the issuer title "Städte Ruhla." is set in prominent brown Gothic lettering across the top, with the value "25 Pf. Gut für Fünfundzwanzig Pfennig 25 Pf." in mixed brown and green text at centre, the date "Ruhla, den 15. September 1918" below, and the authority line "Die Stadtgemeindevorstände" followed by two manuscript signatures. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in brown, green, and cyan-blue on a lightly patterned ground. A serial number panel in black on a cyan-blue background occupies the top centre, flanked by decorative brown scroll and floral ornaments. The central vignette, rendered in brown intaglio-style line engraving, illustrates a blacksmith scene with two figures at an anvil in a stone workshop interior, surmounted by a banner inscribed "Landgraf werde hart." — a reference to the local Thuringian legend. Denomination numerals "25" in green appear within cyan-framed panels at left and right, each pair accompanied by the validity legend "Gültig nur" at upper and lower left and "in Ruhla." at upper and lower right. A redemption clause in brown Gothic script runs across the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
Ruhla, a small Thuringian town historically dominated by watch and pipe manufacturing, issued this emergency note — Notgeld — amid the acute coin shortage that gripped Germany from 1916 onward. The Imperial government's wartime metal requisitions had pulled silver and copper from circulation entirely, leaving municipalities to fill the gap with locally printed paper. Ruhla was among hundreds of German towns that responded in 1918, just months before the armistice collapsed the political order that had made such municipal improvisation necessary in the first place.
Most 1918 Thuringian Notgeld was printed in small regional print shops under no standardized quality control, and paper stock varies considerably within the same series.