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50 Pfennig
| Issuer | City of Gera (Thuringia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed in green on grey paper with a wavy-line guilloche background covering the entire field. Three circular medallions are arranged horizontally: the central and largest medallion contains the quartered heraldic coat of arms of the City of Gera, enclosed within a finely engraved rosette border with a petal-pattern surround; the two flanking medallions, of smaller diameter, each bear the numeral '50' set against a horizontally-lined ground within a similar decorative rosette frame. |
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| Protection type | Watermark |
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| Comments |
Gera's 1920 Notgeld issues belong to the first wave of municipal emergency currency that flooded Germany following the postwar coin shortage — the Reichsbank simply could not produce enough small change to meet everyday demand. Hundreds of towns printed their own, and quality varied wildly. Gera's series sits toward the better-produced end of the spectrum, with a watermarked paper stock that most smaller municipalities skipped entirely.
The watermark is the one feature that distinguishes this from the mass of purely decorative Notgeld printed for the collector trade rather than genuine use.