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50 Pfennig
| Issuer | Schmölln (Thuringia), City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Mark (1914-1924) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Stadt Schmölln Ausgabe 1921 Gültig bis 1 Monat nach Aufruf Schmölln (Thüringen) Der Stadtrat Stoffwäsche- Uhrgehäuse- Maschinen- Sandbunsten- Packmoos- Fabr. Steinnuß- u. horn- knopf- holzschuh- Schuh- Pantoffel- Cigarren- |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in dark blue and salmon-pink on a light green wavy-line guilloche ground. The central vignette portrays a bespectacled male figure — evoking a Bürgermeister or clerk — seated at a desk before an open ledger, with a bookshelf to his left and a stylised mountain silhouette to the right, all rendered in a bold illustrative style. The denomination "50 Pfg." appears at upper left and right flanking the title "Geldnot-Notgeld" in Gothic lettering, while a four-line humorous verse in German script runs along the lower margin; the printer's imprint "Göpel & Bartzsch, Schmölln" is visible at lower left. |
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| Comments |
Schmölln was the center of Germany's button manufacturing industry — at its peak, the town produced roughly half of all buttons made in Germany, a fact the municipality was not shy about advertising. This Notgeld issue is one of hundreds of small-denomination emergency notes printed by German towns in 1921 as the Reichsbank struggled to keep fractional coinage in circulation during accelerating inflation. Göpel & Bartzsch, a local printing firm, handled the run entirely in-house, which was unusual only in how straightforwardly provincial it was.
Series condition varies sharply; locally printed Notgeld from this period often shows uneven ink distribution due to limited press quality.