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50 Pfennig - Nürnberg A. Herbst and M. Ostertag Baugeschäft
| Issuer | A. Herbst & M. Ostertag Baugeschäft, Nuremberg |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920-1921 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 2.7 g |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Octagonal reverse with a beaded outer border following the eight-sided periphery. The large numeral '50' is prominently raised in the central field, enclosed within a twisted rope or cable inner border. The circular legend 'KLEINGELDERSATZMARKE' runs around the upper arc in raised Latin lettering, denoting this piece as a small-change substitute token. Three five-pointed stars are arranged along the lower arc of the field, serving as decorative separators in lieu of additional text. |
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| Edge | Plain |
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| Additional information |
Notgeld issued by a private construction firm — Herbst and Ostertag's building company — during the acute small-change shortage that followed Germany's post-WWI economic dislocation. Municipalities, businesses, and even individual firms across Germany issued their own emergency currency between 1918 and 1923 when the Reichsbank could not keep pace with demand for low-denomination coins. Zinc was the material of necessity: copper and nickel had been consumed by the war economy, and their civilian use remained restricted well into the early 1920s.
A construction company issuing its own scrip is unusual even within the broad Notgeld corpus — most private issuers were retailers or service businesses with large daily transaction volumes in small denominations.