Many years ago I found a small collection of German emergency money in a second-hand shop and paid a few pounds for it. The emergency notes (known as Notgeld) date from the period following the end of World War 1 and they were issued by Local Municipalities and local Savings Banks. They were never legal tender, but they were accepted locally during a period when metal coins were in short supply because of either the war or the post-war economic crisis. They were widely issued in both Germany and Austria and examples can sometimes be found from countries such as France, Spain and Russia. Over the years I have added to my collection and I now must have 200 or so of them. I suspect that if one checked on eBay, they will not be worth a vast amount, but they are interesting and a reminder of previous economic crises. Not a crop of gold, just a crop of Notgeld.
No comments:
Post a Comment