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 Gräfenthal (Thuringia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
| Type | Local banknote |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The upper register presents a central vignette of a seated porcelain craftsman at a modelling stand, working on a figurine, with completed porcelain angel figures arranged on a nearby table and factory chimneys visible through the workshop window; a large decorative ceramic vase is placed symmetrically on pedestals to either side against a golden-ochre ground. The lower register, printed in sage green with curvilinear guilloche ornament, carries the denomination numeral '50' in red within scroll cartouches at left and right, with the word 'Pfennig' in bold blackletter across the centre. A panel at the foot bears the regional promotional motto in blackletter script. |
| Reverse lettering | 50 Pfennig 50 Gräfenthaler Porzellan Triffst in aller Welt du an |
| 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 |
Gräfenthal is a small town in the Thuringian slate-mining district, and its 1921 Notgeld issue belongs to the vast flood of municipal emergency money that German local authorities printed following the post-WWI collapse of small-denomination Reichsmünzen from circulation. The Reichsbank's inability to supply adequate coinage — partly due to metal hoarding, partly wartime depletion — forced thousands of German municipalities to issue their own fractional paper.
Thuringian Notgeld from this period was often regionally themed and printed in short runs, making individual town issues disproportionately scarce relative to the larger city series. Gräfenthal's issue was valid only locally and would have been redeemable in theory, though many were never returned — retained by collectors even at the time of issue, a practice the municipalities quietly encouraged to reduce redemption costs.