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50 Pfennig
| Issuer | Stadt Herford (City of Herford) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
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| Currency | Mark (1914-1924) |
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| Obverse description | Plain white note with a decorative border of interlocking foliate ornaments running along all four edges. The heading STADT HERFORD appears in bold letterpress at the top, below which the text Dieser Gutschein über introduces the large denomination numeral 50 flanking the word Pfennig in the centre. A multi-line text block in German advises that the voucher is accepted by the municipal treasury (Kämmereikasse) and will lose validity one month after public notice in the Herforder Lokalblättern; the issuing authority DER MAGISTRAT is noted at lower right with a manuscript signature below. Place and date HERFORD, den 1. Juni 1917 appear at lower left, and the footer reads Kriegsgeld 1917. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is dominated by a full-width photographic halftone vignette of a large municipal or institutional building, rendered in dark grey-brown tones and occupying most of the note's surface. Printed in red at the upper left and upper right corners are the denomination numerals 50, providing the only colour contrast against the monochrome vignette. The composition is framed by a plain single-line rectangular border. |
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| Comments |
Herford's 1917 50 Pfennig Notgeld belongs to the first wave of municipal emergency currency that flooded German commerce after the Reichsbank's coin-hoarding crisis of 1916–17. Wartime metal shortages — copper and nickel diverted to shell casings — emptied tills across small German cities, and Herford, like hundreds of other municipalities, obtained approval to print its own fractional paper to fill the gap. The city administered its own issue rather than routing it through a regional savings bank, which was not universal practice at the municipal level.
First-wave Notgeld of this type was purely functional and saw hard daily use; survivors in clean condition are less common than the sheer volume of original printing might suggest.