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50 Pfennig
| Issuer | Stadtrat Gotha (Thuringia), City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Cream-toned notgeld issued by the Stadtrat Gotha, printed in red and blue by letterpress. The lower half carries a blue panoramic vignette of the city of Gotha with a church steeple, overlaid in bold red Gothic script with the denomination '50 Pfennige'. The upper portion bears a multi-line text in Kurrent script, with an illuminated red drop capital 'D', a small blue municipal arms stamp at upper right, and the issue date 'Gotha, 15. Juli 1921' alongside the facsimile signature of Dr. Scheffler as Oberbürgermeister on behalf of Der Stadtrat. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | Von Gotha müßt' ein jeder wissen, Daß Grumbach ward ertzweigeriffen. Drumm schorret mich und gebt gut acht, Daß man's mit mir nicht grad' so mache! Pfennige |
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| Comments |
Gotha's 1921 Notgeld issues belong to the second wave of German municipal emergency currency — printed not because coins had vanished, as in 1914–1918, but because postwar inflation had made small-denomination Reichsmünzen worth hoarding as metal almost immediately after they returned to circulation. The Stadtrat was essentially plugging a gap the central banking system refused to acknowledge.
The Hofbuchdruckerei was Gotha's own court printing house, long associated with the ducal administration of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha — a local press with genuine technical standing, not a jobbing printer.
Dr. Scheffler signed as Oberbürgermeister, giving this municipal scrip its legal weight under his personal authority rather than through a bank intermediary.