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50 Pfennig
| Issuer | Stadtrat Altenburg (City Council of Altenburg, Saxe-Altenburg) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Cream-toned notgeld on pale yellow paper with a decorative letterpress border of interlaced floral and foliate ornaments. The upper half bears a large Fraktur blackletter heading 'Gut-Schein' flanked by scrollwork vignettes, with the denomination '50 Pfennig' printed in bold red below; a lightly impressed circular city seal watermark-style underprint is visible in the upper centre. The lower portion carries the validity clause in Gothic script, the issuance date 'Altenburg, den 1. April 1917', the issuing authority 'Der Stadtrat', and two manuscript facsimile signatures, with the numeral '50' in red-outlined rosettes at both lower corners. |
|---|---|
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| Signature(s) | Müller and Leonhardt |
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| Comments |
Altenburg's municipal council, like hundreds of German towns, was forced into emergency currency issue after the wartime metal shortage gutted the small-denomination coin supply. The Reichsbank offered no practical solution for everyday transactions at the local level, so Stadträte across the country simply printed their own. This particular issue came from C. G. Naumann's Leipzig press, a firm that handled a significant volume of Saxon Notgeld work during 1917 and 1918.
Saxe-Altenburg as a sovereign duchy had ceased to exist by the time this note circulated — it was already absorbed into the German Empire — but the city retained its administrative identity and the legal authority to issue emergency scrip.