Catalog
50 Pfennigs
| Issuer | Gemeindekasse Freienohl (Municipality of Freienohl, Sauerland, Prussian province of Westphalia) |
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| Year | |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Notgeld emergency note printed in green and black on white paper with a light blue border. The heading 'NOTGELDSCHEIN' is rendered in large Gothic (Fraktur) script across the top, with 'Freienohl im Sauerland' in the same style below. The centre of the note carries a circular municipal seal of Freienohl flanked by two columns of Gothic-script text stating the redemption obligation of the Gemeindekasse Freienohl; at the foot are two manuscript signatures above the titles 'Der Amtmann' and 'Der Gemeindevorsteher', with a handwritten serial number. |
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| Reverse description | No image of the reverse was provided. Based on the available record, the reverse carries additional lettering relating to the denomination and issuing municipality in a style consistent with Westphalian Notgeld of the early 1920s. |
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| Comments |
Freienohl is a small village on the Ruhr river in the Sauerland, and like hundreds of other German municipalities it resorted to printing its own Notgeld during the severe small-change shortage that gripped Germany from 1916 onward. The Gemeindekasse — the municipal cashier's office — acted as the issuing authority in the absence of any local banking infrastructure capable of managing even a modest emergency emission.
These hyperlocal issues were typically redeemable only within the issuing community, which kept circulation geographically contained and redemption rates high. Survivors tend to come from collector hoards assembled during the Notgeld collecting craze of the early 1920s, not from actual pocket wear.