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50 Pfennig Districts Series - Issue 9: Wilmersdorf
| Issuer | Magistrat der Reichshauptstadt Berlin |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | The obverse is divided into three vertical panels printed in brown and teal on tan paper. The left panel contains a stylized vignette of the Berlin bear rendered in dark woodcut-style illustration, accompanied by the numeral '50' repeated across a guilloche underprint. The central panel carries the denomination inscription in bold blackletter script along with the issuing authority text and date, flanked by two manuscript signatures below. The right panel displays an ornate teal geometric border frame enclosing a circular embossed official stamp of the Magistrat zu Berlin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in dark brown and teal on tan paper and divided into three vertical panels. The left panel, framed by an ornate teal geometric border, bears the district designation 'BEZIRK' at the top, the issue number '9' in a circular vignette, and 'Wilmersdorf' in blackletter script below. The central panel is occupied by a detailed woodcut-style engraved vignette of Jagdschloss Grunewald, the 16th-century hunting lodge, with figures and animals in the foreground. The right panel carries a blackletter inscription identifying the building and its historical period of construction. |
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| Comments |
By 1921, the chronic shortage of small-denomination coinage across Germany had pushed municipal and district authorities to issue their own emergency scrip — Notgeld — in quantities that dwarfed any coordinated central effort. Wilmersdorf, then still an independent municipality west of Berlin before its formal absorption into Greater Berlin in 1920, issued this note under the Magistrat der Reichshauptstadt Berlin, that awkward bureaucratic overlap reflecting the transitional administrative reality of the newly consolidated capital.
The embossed stamp was the primary anti-counterfeiting measure, cheap to apply and difficult to fake without the original die. Given the ephemeral intent of these issues, survival rates are high — most Notgeld was collected rather than spent.