Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
5 Pfennig
| Issuer | Stadtgemeinde Sommerfeld (City of Sommerfeld) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 Pfennigs (5 Pfennige) (0.05) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is essentially blank, with the obverse design showing through as a ghost impression in the thin paper. A large circular official ink stamp in blue — the seal of the Magistrat der Stadt Sommerfeld — is applied at centre, bearing the city's fortified-tower coat of arms surrounded by the legend 'MAGISTRAT DER STADT SOMMERFELD' around the circumference, serving as the primary authentication mark for this Notgeld issue. |
| Reverse lettering | MAGISTRAT DER STADT SOMMERFELD |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Sommerfeld — today Lubsko, in southwestern Poland — was a mid-sized Silesian town whose municipal government issued this note in 1917 as part of the broader German Kleingeldersatz phenomenon: the near-total disappearance of low-denomination coinage from circulation once metal was requisitioned for the war effort. Thousands of German municipalities did the same, which makes individual town issues easy to dismiss as unremarkable. What keeps them interesting is the extreme localism — this note was essentially a municipal IOU, redeemable only within the issuing town's commerce.
The Adolf Forker press in Leipzig handled a substantial volume of Notgeld work during the war years, and the official ink stamp on this piece was the issuer's primary anti-counterfeiting measure — thin assurance for a 5 Pfennig note, but adequate given how hyperlocal the circulation was.