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50 Pfennig Goethe Series - Schwalbenstein
| Issuer | Ilmenau (Thuringia), City of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
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| Value | 50 Pfennigs (50 Pfennige) (0.50) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Two vignettes occupy the upper portion: at left, the Schwalbenstein rock formation with a lookout hut on its summit; at right, a panoramic view across the Ilm valley. Below the vignettes runs a silhouetted scene from Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris, illustrating the figures of Iphigenie and Orest. Bilingual literary quotations — from Goethe's diary entry of 19 March 1779 and from the Iphigenia text — are set in the surrounding panels in period gothic and roman typefaces. |
| Reverse lettering | Schwalbenstein. Blick vom Schwalbenstein. Iphigenie und Orest (left) Schwalbenstein bei Ilmenau. Sereno die quieta mente schrieb ich, Nach einer Wahl von drei Jahren den vierten Akt meiner Iphigenia an einem Tage. am 19. März 1779. Goethe. (right) Wem die Himmlischen viel Ver= wirrung zugedacht haben, wem sie erschütternde, schnelle Wechsel der Freude und des Schmerzes bereiten, dem geben sie kein höher Geschenk als einen ruhigen Freund. |
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| Comments |
Ilmenau's 1921 notgeld series takes its Goethe theme seriously — the town had a genuine claim to it. Goethe visited Ilmenau repeatedly over five decades in his role as a Weimar court official overseeing the local silver mines, and the Schwalbenstein, a rocky outcrop in the surrounding Thuringian forest, was among his documented haunts. Max Bechstein's designs for the series drew on that specific local geography rather than the generic Goethe portraiture that cluttered notgeld issues elsewhere in Germany during the same period.
Wiedemannsche Druckerei AG in Saalfeld handled both printing and engraving — an integrated production uncommon enough to give the series a consistency of line quality rarely seen in municipal emergency issues of this inflationary moment.