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 Kreisausschuss des Kreises Monschau
Year 1921
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 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 1 October 1921
Reference(s) Log in to see details
Obverse description Log in to see details
Obverse lettering Log in to see details
Reverse description The reverse is printed in green, black, and ochre tones, with a large central vignette of a ruined medieval castle — identified by caption as the hunting lodge of Charlemagne (Jagdschloß Karls des Großen) — set in a wooded landscape with a stream in the foreground. Flanking text panels carry rhyming German verses referencing Charlemagne's construction of the castle and eleven centuries of loyalty to the Reich. The denomination '50 Pfennig' appears in the upper corners, with 'Kreis Monschau' in bold Gothic blackletter across the top.
Reverse lettering Kreis Monschau
50 Pfennig
Jagdschloß Karls des Großen.
Karl der Große dies Schloß hat erbaut,
Elfhundert Jahr in die Lande es schaut,
Und wenn noch einmal elfhundert vergeh'n,
Treu woll'n zum Reiche wir allezeit steh'n.
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

Monschau (known as Montjoie until 1918) was a small wool-manufacturing town in the Eifel region near the Belgian border, and its district committee issued this note during the acute small-change shortage that plagued Germany in the early Weimar years. The Kreisausschuss — the district executive committee — was one of thousands of local administrative bodies that stepped in when the Reichsbank simply could not supply enough low-denomination coinage to keep commerce moving.

The designer credit to Lütkens is worth noting: regionally commissioned Notgeld of this period was often handed to local commercial artists, and the results varied enormously in quality. Nothing about this issue's printing history is firmly documented.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE