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50 Pfennig
| Issuer | Städte Bremerhaven, Geestemünde und Lehe (Cities of Bremerhaven, Geestemünde and Lehe) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | M. Dumont Schauberg, Köln, Germany |
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| Obverse description | Brown and red Notgeld voucher on cream paper, with an elaborate guilloche border of repeating rosette and interlocking pattern elements framing the entire design. The denomination numerals '50' appear in each corner, with the issuing cities' names 'BREMERHAVEN · GEESTEMÜNDE · LEHE' arched across the upper field above the central legend 'Gutschein über 50 PFENNIG'. A block of Gothic-script text in the centre details the conditions of acceptance and joint liability of the three municipalities, concluding with the authority lines of Der Stadtrat Bremerhaven, Der Magistrat Geestemünde, and Der Magistrat Lehe; a red oval control stamp is applied to the centre, and the serial number appears both at the top right and bottom left. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed entirely in brown on cream paper, the reverse is dominated by a large central circular vignette enclosing a detailed engraving of a steam vessel under sail on open water, evoking the maritime character of the port cities. The background field is covered with a fine wavy-line guilloche underprint, and four corner medallions — each set within a rosette of radiating lathe-work — carry the denomination numeral '50' in a geometric cartouche, reinforcing the note's value at each corner. |
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| Comments |
This note belongs to the vast Notgeld wave of 1918, when the wartime coin shortage forced hundreds of German municipalities to issue their own emergency small-denomination paper. What makes this particular piece structurally unusual is its issuer: not a single city but a formal joint authority of three neighboring North Sea port municipalities — Bremerhaven, Geestemünde, and Lehe — all of which would eventually merge into a single city, Bremerhaven, in 1924. The cooperative issuance reflects the administrative entanglement of these towns well before that merger was formalized.
M. Dumont Schauberg, the Cologne printer responsible for this note, was primarily a newspaper and commercial printing house — the publisher of the Kölnische Zeitung — pressed into Notgeld production like many civilian printers during the war.