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!
50 Pfennig
| Issuer | Stadt Ohrdruf (City of Ohrdruf) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Rectangular |
| 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 | Cream-toned notgeld printed in dark brown and teal, with a teal dot-and-chain border running the full perimeter. A left-hand panel contains a stylised Art Nouveau vignette of two mirrored semicircular foliate motifs above and below the numeral '50' and the legend 'Pfennig' in Fraktur. The main field carries the issuer heading 'Stadt Ohrdruf.' in bold Fraktur at the top, denomination numerals '50 Pfg.' flanking a circular violet official city stamp bearing an eagle, the large Fraktur legend 'Fünfzig Pfennig', the date 'Ohrdruf, den 1. Mai 1917.', a typeset serial number, and the manuscript signature of the Stadtrat beneath the printed designation 'Der Stadtrat:'. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Cream-toned reverse printed in dark brown with a teal underprint of the Ohrdruf municipal coat of arms — a crowned shield with elaborate foliate mantling — centred on the note. The heading 'Stadt Ohrdruf.' appears in bold Fraktur at the top, with the denomination '50 Pfg.' in large Fraktur at each lateral margin. A ruled rectangular text panel, superimposed over the watermark-style coat-of-arms vignette, contains the redemption clause in Fraktur script. Along the lower portion the validity restriction and denomination 'Fünfzig Pfennig' are printed in Fraktur, flanked on both sides by the locality restriction legend. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| 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 |
Ohrdruf sits in the Thuringian district that became, by late 1944, the site of one of the first Nazi concentration camps discovered by American forces — but in 1917 the town was simply a mid-sized municipality scrambling, like hundreds of others, to address the acute small-change shortage caused by wartime metal hoarding. The German Reichsbank could not supply enough low-denomination coinage, so municipal authorities across the country were authorized to print their own emergency notes — Notgeld — to keep local commerce moving.
The Rötter signature likely identifies the Bürgermeister or a senior treasury official countersigning the issue. Ohrdruf's 1917 series predates the more decorative collector-targeted Notgeld that flooded the market after 1920.