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 | 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 | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | DeNG 1/2#0463.1a-2/2 |
| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in green, tan, and blue tones, with a scalloped dot border framing the entire note. At centre, the municipal coat of arms of Gräfenthal is displayed within a hexagonal cartouche surrounded by elaborate baroque scrollwork and foliage; a crowned female figure surmounts the shield, which bears a lion passant in the lower field. The denomination "50 PFENNIG" appears twice in circular wreath medallions flanking the central vignette, with a radiating sunburst underprint beneath, and the inscriptions "Notgeld 1921" and "Stadt Gräfenthal Th.W." at upper left and upper right respectively. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in green, teal, gold, and brown tones, with the same scalloped dot border as the obverse. To the left, a rotated diamond-shaped ornamental panel in teal and gold carries the denomination "50 PFENNIG" in bold dark numerals at centre. The right half presents a polychrome landscape vignette of Burg Wespenstein castle set among dense conifers on a hillside, identified by the captioned label "BURG-WESPENSTEIN" in a rectangular frame at lower right. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| 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 slate-quarrying town in the Thuringian highlands, and its 1921 Notgeld issue reflects the chronic small-change shortage that paralyzed German commerce during the early Weimar years. The Reichsbank's inability to produce sufficient low-denomination coinage after the war forced thousands of municipalities — many far smaller than Gräfenthal — to print their own emergency scrip, creating a patchwork currency system that the central government tolerated largely because it had no practical alternative.
The DeNG reference suffix distinctions (1a versus 2) typically indicate paper stock or overprint variants within the same base printing run rather than separate design issues.