Hello, Thanks in advance for any responses. I can not find any information on this note. It is rare that I can't I find anything, so I'm think is note is as such (rare). Does anyone know anything about this note? Please and Thank You. Mike
Hi! What you have is a inflation era notgeld note. Yours is from Munchen Gladbach. Not too rare I'm afraid.
Not from München; Gladbach is in the Rhineland-Palatinate, on the extreme western border of Germany, along the Rhine River. A word you could have thought was München is "Gutschein," commonly found on notgeld, meaning, good or valid currency. Notgeld will never show up in general world currency catalogs like Pick.
The first line reads "Issued by the Chamber of Commerce of Munchen-Gladbach" then some stuff about the issue being approved by the CoC members. Just one of thousands of Notgeld issues but quite a late one. Modest value. Munchen Gladbach is very familiar in Britain as there was a huge British Army base there for decades after the war. Till 1994 or a bit later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_of_the_Rhine
This is the city I referred to: "...The original name of the city was Gladbach, which is even today often applied to the town. To distinguish the town from another town of the same name (the present Bergisch Gladbach), it took the name München-Gladbach in 1888. This spelling could mislead people to think that Gladbach was a borough of Munich (München in German), and consequently the name was changed to Mönchen-Gladbach in 1950 and Mönchengladbach in 1960..." =========== I can't find a map that shows either place, so I give up. Is the bill from the Gladbach that's for all practical purposes on the Rhine River?
None of the two cities is on the Rhine river, but neither is far away from the Rhine. Both are in Rhineland (not in the state of Rhineland Palatinate but further north, in the state of North Rhine Westphalia these days), and a Wikipedia article that refers to a location will have a map link. Mönchengladbach, NW used to have quite a bit of textile industry; today it's mostly famous for its football club. As far as I know, the original name "Gladbach" (still in common use) refers to a local creek (Bach) which was "glatt", i.e. the contrary of a wild river. (There are quite a few places that are called Gladbach.) The added "München-", later "Mönchen-", means monks (that also applies to Munich, BY). Bergisch Gladbach is somewhat smaller, and a suburb of Cologne. The "Bergisch" refers to the region, and former duchy, of Berg. Christian
Hehe, Karlsruhe is a young city by European standards - and at least formally this city is on the Rhine. One difference between place names in the US and here is that "[city name], [state]" is usually uncommon here. So other differentiations are used when necessary, river or mountain names, or historic regions. And with regard to Germany, several of our current states are were founded or established in the early or mid 20th century. Between 1815 and 1946, this "M. Gladbach" was in the state of Prussia, thus also when this notgeld note was issued. Christian
