This was given to me by my father when I was about 8 years old, and he got it from his father. I've always loved this note, I'm not quite sure why, but I can't seem to find out anything about it. From I've gathered, it was issued by a town or city rather than by the federal government. If I've done my reading correctly, the city that issued it is Bamberg. The condition of the note itself is great; there are no folds or creases. I have absolutely no knowledge of currency, so anything that anybody can tell is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
during the hyper inflation period in germany after WW1 individual towns/cities issued banknotes which at the time were in effect worthless. however in ensuing years these type of notes called "notgeld" meaning not backed by gold have become collectable, this note is an example of that particular type of note and the value is relatively low....
Not quite. "Not" in German means "emergency" and "geld" means money. Notgeld in English is literally "emergency money".
The text on the back of this note is political commentary about the inflation and the war reparations owed to the French that caused the inflation.
and in german the word geld translates as gold............these notes were issued on the premise that they weren't backed by gold reserves, hence notgeld which is an anglisisation of the german text.
That site is awesome, thanks! I thought mine was cool-looking, but some of the ones there put mine to shame. Haven't found this particular one on there quite yet, but I'll keep looking!
in German, "Geld" (en: money) and "Gold" (en: gold) are not related, neither etymologically nor regarding the meaning. You are right, notgeld was not backed by gold - but that applies to any money issued in the German Empire after 1914. Notgeld means emergency money, ie. coins or notes that are issued due to some emergency situation. The term is used on local and regional issues only. Christian
I've bought a couple of batches of notgeld notes and the same thought also crossed my mind. Paper quality wasn't that important, nor the printing techniques. It would be rather simple to reproduce.
Most of it, I think. With few exceptions, it would not make much sense to counterfeit them. Christian
i agree with you christian, because of the plethora of notgeld notes on ebay every week i realy don't think that the majority are real issues, hence my absolute reluctance to start a collection of the notes although i do have quite a lot of kriegsgeld coins.
In 25+ years of collecting notgeld the question of whether or not any of it was genuine has rarely crossed my mind. There is such little value to most of it that it seems unlikely. I have encountered contemporary counterfeits of German inflationary notes. These are eagerly sought by German collectors and frequently bring more money than genuine notes because they are more scarce than the genuine ones.
Not that I am a notgeld expert in any way but we can, very roughly, differentiate between two types of German notgeld. Initially those notes came out because there was not enough small change - hence the denominations of 50 pfennig etc. Many of those were beautifully designed, even with collectors in mind. The motivation was simple: The more of those emergency issues were collected and not redeemed, the more profit for the city (or whoever issued them). And higher denominations, be it coins or notes, were still available - inflation was not the primary issue then. Guess that quite a few of those have "survived". Later, with denominations in the millions and bilions range, that aspect became less important. Sure, nicely designed notes were still made and issued (as the one in the first post shows), but the denominations became higher and higher very quickly. When the note in the first post was issued in Oct-1923, you would have needed two to buy one egg. When the inflation period ended, 1 Billion (1,000,000,000,000) Mark became 1 Reichsmark. This note here would thus have had a minimal value. I have seen photos from those years of people using such notes as wallpaper or for heating. So on one hand quite a few of those notgeld notes were destroyed; then again I am sure that enough survived because people just did not care ... Christian
Hey, I found one! http://cgi.ebay.com/1923-BAMBERG-GERMANY-1-000-000-000-MARK-NOTGELD-NOTE-/290518835232 I'm a little disappointed in the value, but I honestly wasn't expecting much. Still a cool note nonetheless! Thanks to all who helped!
At that time in Germany their currency was so devalued that it was literally cheaper to burn money for heat than wood. The amount of paper money needed to buy wood was greater in weight than the wood itself, so the money fire burnt longer.
