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 Silhouette Series
| Issuer | Stadt Berga (Elster), Stadtgemeindevorstand |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 50 Pfennigs (50 Pfennige) (0.50) |
| 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) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The central vignette presents a large silhouette scene in the characteristic Notgeld papercut style: a musician playing a violin walks at night, accompanied by a wolf approaching from behind, set against a treeline under a crescent moon. Flanking the central panel on both left and right are narrow vertical columns, each bearing a silhouette of an owl and the denomination '50', with the left column inscribed 'Wolfsgrube am Baderberg' and the right 'Berga an der Elster' in vertical Gothic script, and 'Pfennig' appearing below the left denomination numeral. A two-part rhyming verse in Gothic blackletter runs along the top and bottom margins of the note. |
| Reverse lettering | Der Musikant geht spät nach Haus. Begegnet ihm ein Wolf, o Graus. 50 Wolfsgrube am Baderberg Pfennig Berga an der Elster 50 Der hätt' ihn sicher umgebracht. Doch hatt' er sein des Spielens acht. |
| 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 |
Berga an der Elster was a small textile town in Thuringia, and its municipal government issued this note during the height of the German postwar small-change crisis — the Kleingeldersatz emergency that flooded Germany with thousands of locally printed Notgeld issues between 1920 and 1922. Otto Henning A.G. in nearby Greiz was a regional printer that handled multiple Thuringian municipal commissions during this period, which likely kept production costs low enough for a town of Berga's modest size to participate.
F. Dyroff's silhouette design gave the series its collector name. The silhouette format was a deliberate artistic choice — fashionable in German graphic design of the early Weimar years — and distinguishes this issue from the more generic typeset notes flooding the same market at the same time.