Catalog
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| Issuer | Stadt Melle (City of Melle) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is rendered in grey-blue, ochre, and black, with a rural scene occupying the full central field: an elderly man and a woman holding an infant, accompanied by a small child, stand beside a sack of produce before a half-timbered farmstead. Octagonal denomination panels with the numeral "25" are placed at lower left and lower right. Two framed verse inscriptions in Gothic script occupy the upper left and upper right corners. |
| Reverse lettering | Ich bin ein Schein und bin nur Schein, Bin Geldeswert und bin nichts wert 25 25 Was Dein Du nennst, das wird erst Dein, Wenn Fleiß, wenn Treue wiederkehrt |
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| Comments |
Melle is a small town in Lower Saxony, and like hundreds of German municipalities during the post-WWI inflationary spiral, it issued its own emergency paper money — Notgeld — to address the chronic shortage of small-denomination coins. The 25 Pfennig note dates to 1920, squarely within the first wave of municipal issues before hyperinflation made such denominations worthless within two years.
The print date of 30 April 1945 is almost certainly a catalog or documentation error — that date is the day Berlin fell and Hitler died, not a plausible production date for a 1920 Notgeld issue.