Catalog
50 Pfennig
| Issuer | Steinbach bei Bad Liebenstein (Thuringia), Municipality of |
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| Year | |
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| Value | 50 Pfennigs (50 Pfennige) (0.50) |
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| Obverse description | The upper portion of the note is occupied by a large central vignette rendered in dark letterpress, showing a woman in traditional Thuringian folk dress standing before a panoramic view of the town of Steinbach, with rolling wooded hills beyond; she carries a rake over her shoulder and holds a posy of flowers. The lower panel, printed in green guilloche ornament, bears the denomination '50 Pf.' in red circular cartouches at left and right, flanking the central text 'STEINBACH / KREIS MEININGEN' with two manuscript signatures below. A red-framed validity notice 'GÜLTIG 30 TAGE NACH ABRUF' appears at upper left, and a red ornamental seal occupies the upper right corner. |
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| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is framed by a green guilloche border with floral corner ornaments and red '50 Pf.' denomination discs at left and right. A central inset vignette, captioned 'Schleifkotte' at its upper edge, presents a detailed letterpress scene of a traditional grinding mill with a large waterwheel, set amid trees. Below the vignette, a text panel in period script carries a four-line regional verse, with a small printer's imprint beneath. |
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| Comments |
Steinbach bei Bad Liebenstein is a small spa-adjacent village in the Thuringian highlands, and like hundreds of similar municipalities it turned to Notgeld during the acute coin shortage that gripped Germany between 1917 and 1922. These hyperlocal issues were often printed in tiny runs by regional printers with no particular security infrastructure — validity was enforced by community trust rather than any formal monetary mechanism.
The GRM reference places this within the Grabowski-Mehl Notgeld catalog, the standard authority for German municipal emergency money. Series 5/6 suggests a paired issue, likely intended for simultaneous release.