Notgeld of Hamburg

In the years of inflation, when small change had disappeared from the towns of Germany, cities and companies issued emergency money — Notgeld. This is a fifty-pfennig note of Hamburg, 1921. The engraving of the civic guard of about 1800 and of the Jungfernstieg, the tree-lined walk by the Alster, is far too beautiful to be called a stopgap. In fact the towns competed in design, and there arose people who wanted Notgeld not to spend but to collect. A small art of the print, left behind unexpectedly by the disorder of the currency.