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| Issuer | Spar- und Darlehnskassen-Verein Oberdorla |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Mark (1914-1924) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | NOTGELD 25 Pfennig 25 Pfennig Gemeinde Oberdorla (Vogtei) 25 Pfennig |
| Reverse description | Cream-coloured note printed in black within a decorative border matching the obverse, enclosing a six-line verse in Gothic (Fraktur) blackletter type praising the Vogtei region and referencing the emergency currency issue. The initials 'H. E.' appear in the lower-right corner, attributing the verse to its author. Ghosted show-through of the obverse clover vignettes and denomination numerals is visible through the thin paper stock. |
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| Comments |
Oberdorla is a village in Thuringia with a population that barely exceeded a few hundred at the time of issue. That a local agricultural cooperative — a Spar- und Darlehnskassen-Verein, essentially a rural credit union of the Raiffeisen type — was printing its own emergency currency in 1918 speaks directly to how completely the German small-change shortage had atomized monetary life by the final year of the war. Coin metal had long since been requisitioned, and central authorities lacked both the capacity and the interest to supply fractional notes to communities this small.
Notgeld at this scale was often printed by a local stationer or printer, with no meaningful anti-counterfeiting provisions — the community itself was the only enforcement mechanism.