Catalog
25 Pfennig
| Issuer | Gemeinde Altheide (Herzheilbad in Schlesien) |
|---|---|
| Year | |
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| Printer | E. Schirmer, Glatz |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | ALTHEIDE HEILT DAS HERZ 25 Pf NOTGELD DER GEMEINDE ALTHEIDE HERZHEILBAD IN SCHLESIEN |
| Reverse description | Dark-ground composition centred on a divided heraldic shield, the upper-left quarter bearing a heart with the numeral "25" and the lower-right quarter a heart with the abbreviation "Pf", surmounted by a fountain jet issuing from a crenellated parapet. Silhouetted landscape vignettes — a castle with a church spire to the left and a conifer-studded hillside to the right — flank the shield above a wavy waterline. Two manuscript facsimile signatures of the Gemeindevorstand appear below the legend "DER GEMEINDE VORSTAND", with the printer's imprint "E. SCHIRMER GLATZ" at the foot; the monogram "HRE" is visible at lower left. A geometric diamond-pattern border identical to the obverse frames the note. |
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| Comments |
Altheide — known today as Polanica-Zdrój in Lower Silesia — was a spa town whose Kurort status made it an unlikely but logical issuer of Notgeld. The municipal series, printed locally by E. Schirmer in nearby Glatz, belongs to the inflationary wave of 1917–1922 when hundreds of German and Austrian municipalities issued small-denomination emergency scrip to address a severe shortage of coin. Glatz itself is now the Polish city Kłodzko, which places both the issuer and the printer inside what became Polish territory after 1945.
The parenthetical "Herzheilbad" in the issuer name is the detail worth noticing: it was an official designation distinguishing Altheide as a cardiac spa, one of very few in Silesia with that specific medical classification.