| On these pages you will find an ever
growing catalog of Notgeld Coinage and brief information
pertaining to each coin such as country, city, town, person or theme
depicted on the coin. Notgeld is a term used for the wide variety of
mostly German or Austrian emergency money issued by local governments or
businesses during
wartime and other crisis. Although notgeld was issued over a wider time
span, most coins on these pages were minted between 1914-1923. These interesting
footnotes in numismatic history were produced at the local level by
cities, towns, businesses and organizations to fill the need for currency
not being met by the government. They were issued for the lowest
denominations to the ridiculously high denominations produced during
hyperinflation. Their practical use was limited, many were minted or printed to be
sold and collected much like one would baseball cards. there are thousands of varieties with wide ranging,
artistic, social and political themes using mostly alternative material
such as iron, zinc, porcelain, paper, leather, aluminum foil, and cloth.
More than 20 private minting firms have been reported
as having struck notgeld, the vast majority were struck by L. Christian
Lauer, Kugel and Fink, Heinrich Arld, Carl Poellath, Wilhelm Meyer and
Franz Wilhelm, B.H. Mayer, and C. Balmberger.
In many cases, the reverse of the piece carried the
value and the obverse carried the name of the town and coat of arms. Thus,
it was required to only make a die for each new obverse and use a
standardized dies for the reverse.
Notgeld Search
Feature |