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 Melle (City of Melle) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Mark (1914-1924) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Green-tinted Notgeld note with the issuer's name 'Stadt Melle' in Gothic blackletter across the top banner. A central oval vignette presents a detailed line-engraved view of the Melle town hall (Rathaus), flanked by decorative cornucopia and acanthus scroll ornaments; denomination numerals '50' appear in octagonal frames at left and right. Below the vignette, a two-line text clause in Fraktur script states the redemption terms, dated Melle, den 15. November 1920, with the facsimile signature of the Magistrat. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Oho, wat häurt dau aulle to! |
| 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 |
Melle's 1920 Notgeld issue belongs to the vast wave of municipal emergency currency that flooded Germany as federal coin supplies collapsed in the postwar years. Stadt Melle, a small administrative town in Lower Saxony, was among thousands of local authorities legally empowered to issue their own fractional notes under tolerating decrees from the Reichsbank — a situation that produced staggering variety and, almost immediately, a collector market that local issuers quickly learned to exploit.
By 1920, many towns were printing deliberately attractive series purely for philatelic sale, knowing collectors would hoard them uncirculated. Whether Melle's issue served genuine circulation need or doubled as a revenue exercise is worth investigating before pricing accordingly.