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50 Pfennigs Böttger Series
| Issuer | Stadtgemeinde Schleiz (City of Schleiz, Thuringia) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1921 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Fünfzig-Pfennig · Fünfzig-Pfennig · STADT · O · SCHLEIZ · 50 Pfennig Dieser Gutschein verliert seine Gültigkeit 11 Monat n. Bekanntmachung. Schleiz, den 1. 12. 1921. Der Stadtgemeindevorst. |
| Reverse description | Monochrome brown vignette in an expressionist etching style, centred on a circular portrait medallion of Johann Friedrich Böttger in left profile, surrounded by his name in Gothic script. Diagonal decorative bands at left and right carry inscribed legends. Flanking scenes in the lower field show an alchemist at work at a furnace and a craftsman at a kiln, evoking Böttger's discovery of European porcelain. |
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| Comments |
Schleiz issued this 50 Pfennig note as part of a locally commissioned Notgeld series commemorating Johann Friedrich Böttger, the Saxon alchemist who stumbled onto the formula for European hard-paste porcelain in 1708 while imprisoned at the Albrechtsburg in Meissen. Schleiz's connection to Böttger is biographical — he was born there in 1682 — which gave the city reasonable claim to the theme even as Meissen and Dresden dominated his later story.
The 1921 date places this firmly in the second wave of German municipal emergency currency, when many towns used Notgeld more as a collectibles revenue stream than a genuine response to coin shortages. Böttger died an alcoholic at 37, never freed from royal service despite his discovery.