Notgeld? Not Notgeld?

[chrisild]

You will know that "Notgeld" means "emergency money", and that it may serve two different purposes. If not enough regular cash is available, notgeld can fill that gap and make payments possible. But sometimes such coins or notes are used for fundraising purposes. Well, last year artists in and around Coburg, BY and Goch, NW designed and printed their own money.

Money? In inverted commas, please - "money". The idea was, in the times of pandemic related restrictions, many artists went through rough times. No regular income, hardly any contacts to potential customers, and so on. So some of them made paper Notgeld in order to deal with this situation. The Goch initiative produced and sold 27 different "notes". Of course they were not intended to circulate but to raise awareness and money.

VIR3 is a team of three artists (the word is based on their initials) in Goch. You can see the notgeld here. One of the artists involved still sells those notes online. The designs are quite different of course, but they were printed on the same machine and have the same 7x13 cm size. Attached are two designs. ("Aus einer leeren Tasse kann man nicht trinken" means "You cannot drink from an empty cup".)

The Bavarian Künstlernotgeld initiative was a little different; different materials and sizes were OK there. But the idea was the same: If we are not allowed to make money the way we usually do, we need to make it differently.

Earlier this year (September 2022), the University of Münster presented this Notgeld in its Coin of the Month column (in German). Yeah, right, those are not coins - still an interesting phenomenon though. Unfortunately you cannot "jump" to the Sep-22 section directly. So look for the "September 2022" title bar, or do a search for "ingo" on that page. Or just enjoy the other stories as well.

[Figleaf]

Fun. Interesting. A measure of artistic merit. Thanks for showing. But not Notgeld/emergency money. There was no lack of cash during COVID. On the contrary. The emergency was on the artist's side. Fair enough, but that doesn't make it circulate.

Wouldn't this thread be more correctly placed on the board "Advertising, propaganda and numismatic artefacts"?

Peter

[chrisild]

Wouldn't this thread be more correctly placed on the board "Advertising, propaganda and numismatic artefacts"?

Sure, I can of course move the topic. These are, very obviously, not banknotes. Now propaganda, hmm. Advertising, hmm. One thing we should keep in mind when talking about Notgeld is that, in the early 1920s, quite a few German issues have never been used in/for circulation but were sold as fundraisers. That primarily applies to many very ornate, colorful notes. Well, at least those were issued by cities/counties or maybe regional savings banks. The pieces in this topic were not.

[Figleaf]

One thing we should keep in mind when talking about Notgeld is that, in the early 1920s, quite a few German issues have never been used in/for circulation but were sold as fundraisers.

Quite agreed and the same is true for many coins on the coin boards and commemorative banknotes on the banknotes boards, especially if fund raising includes making money for the issuers, while other objects not discussed on the coin boards were in fact in circulations. It is just hard to tell them apart completely. We do make an effort to keep them apart, but I guess there will always be questionable cases and a grey area. That's why I formulated my proposal as a question.

That primarily applies to many very ornate, colorful notes.

It is worth remembering, that on this board, they are accompanied by prestigious pieces of art in the thread "coins in art", a favourite of many of our members.

Peter