Well, as the weather has been so nice, lately, cycling has become enjoyable once again. A warm sun, only the slightest of breezes and no muddy roads – a cyclists delight. Its good to have a goal with fitness and cycling helps me to achieve that.
Please note that I have had to increase the postage cost to send abroad from 10 euros to 12.50 euros. I make no money on postage.
This month, I will be combing through catalogues, books and papers, always on the lookout to learn something new about some of the notgeld issues and issuers. I was lucky in the last week or so and was able to pick up a few interesting and scarcer pieces. I will be scanning and researching them all and then hopefully adding the info to the relevant articles on the website. I have been looking at the different ways in which notgeld were cancelled and also the way the issuers tried to make it more difficult for forgers and fraudsters. for example. This recent uniface notgeld addition, is a case in point, It was issued in Delmenhorst and the top printed line states: ‘value not over 10 Mark’. (Someone couldn’t legitimately write a value of over ‘Zehn’ (10) Mark, in the value fields.) At some point, the issuer must have thought about values with Mark and Pfennig, possibly, as there are 2 fields that need filling in?? (The ‘M’ for Mark is printed before the hand-written value got added…………..but before issue, someone may have thought a note could be needed or written for ‘M ….. Zwei 50pfennig (2.5 Marks) for example. Why else have the 2 separate fields? Only the 5 + 10 Mark notes were ever issued though………..so the second field is a query still.
The note is undated but it dates from 1914. It was issued by the ‘Hanseatische Jute – Spinnerei & Webererei’ in Delmenhorst (Hanseatic Jute – Spinning and Weaving Mill). With a low serial number, hand-written face value of 5 Mark and nice stamp marks, it makes for a nice addition to any notgeld collection.