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500 million marks of Duisburg, Germany

Started by Pellinore, October 22, 2020, 09:09:21 AM

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Pellinore

This is a banknote that I like because of its color contrast of ochre-pink and green-blue print on off-white paper. The city of Duisburg was built where the river Ruhr flows into the Rhine. When printed, it had a value of some ten dollars, a tidy sum for most Germans at the time. The note has seen use, too.

It measures 91 x 162 mm. The overall picture is followed by a detail to show the tiny underprint.

-- Paul

chrisild

At least the design looks as if that was actually used for payments. :) Some of those beautifully designed and colored notes from other places in Germany suggest they were made primarily for collectors, but this one was probably not.

As you will know, a tower can be found in the coat of arms of many cities. The double eagle above it hints at Duisburg's former status as a free city. Practically it lost that status in 1290 though when it was pawned ...

Cannot read the signature, but it still is interesting: "Der Oberbürgermeister" is, in a bigger city, the First or Lord Mayor. Then you see the printed "i.V." (in Vertretung, on behalf). Now from 1914 until 1933, the mayor of Duisburg was Karl Jarres. In 1923, the Belgian occupation forces "rewarded" his passive resistance strategy with a two-month imprisonment, after that he had to leave the area. His anti-separatism attitude, in addition to political competences, made him popular and interesting for the Reich's government. So Jarres was Germany's minister of interior/home affairs in 1923/24. In 1925 he was close to becoming the country's president - won most votes (almost 40%) in the presidential election. But then he stepped back in order to support Hindenburg, and until 1933 worked as Duisburg's mayor again.

Christian (from the city just south of Duisburg  ;) )

Elak

Inflation notes are intriguing - I wonder if these huge denomination were taken seriously buy the public.
More recent hyper inflationary issues have been in Zimbabwe where banknotes with long trains of zeros were issued.

Figleaf

In both cases they were used, taken seriously or not, by sheer necessity. Banknotes had a screechingly high turnover as they became worth less every day, so you needed them in daytime and wanted to have spent or exchanged them before nightfall. Therefore, those actually used literally changed hands at least once every day, while being hollowed out by inflation.

I have had multiple conversations with a Brazilian colleague on life in Brazil during hyperinflation. It ain't nice and some of the basic rules of society turn around, yet even in those circumstances, some people can get rich.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.

chrisild

Quote from: Elak on November 15, 2021, 02:34:05 AM
Inflation notes are intriguing - I wonder if these huge denomination were taken seriously buy the public.

As Figleaf just wrote, what alternatives did people have? If you had a source of income that made you independent (or at least less dependent) from being paid and paying with such money, great. Most people, however, did not have such options.

In hindsight, some of the stories from Germany in that hyperinflation period sound like weird, sometimes even amusing, anecdotes. Somebody orders a cup of coffee at a café which costs 5,000 Mark; a little later he asks for another cup; at the end he gets a 14,000 M bill because the price had gone up in the meantime. A family somewhere in Southern Germany sells its home in order to emigrate to the US, but by the time they arrive at a Northern port city, say Bremen or Hamburg, the money they got for the house is not enough for the passage.

But yes, this was serious. As soon as you got your salary (preferably every day), you would run to a grocery store trying to buy food for the family – if you waited a day or so, your money was worth considerably less. To some extent, bartering became popular, but of course that had its limits. Here are some photos, along with short explanatory texts in German, from those days ...

Christian

Elak

I remember that in Romania in the 1990s, a separate economy existed based on USD, D Mark, and to a lesser extent Sterling. Low denomination USD were the most useful notes to have. The Lei, though not an inflationary currency back then had its own economy.

I guess that where hyper inflation is an issue, people who have access to hard currencies store their funds as such.

Figleaf

It's more complicated (isn't it always?) In circumstances of hyper-inflation, life becomes one big currency game. One dealer in Brazil promised he'd pay the price of the TV back to you a month after you'd bought it - in practice, this amounts to a small discount. People with access to gun men would start a bank, buy overdue credit for a very steep discount and get the money returned with violence, or they'd try to get credit from other banks and not repay. Pretty soon, the amount due would be worth less than the lawyer's fee. Those who had access to foreign currency could sell it at a premium over market, so they'd start a bank also, import notes and sell them at an agio. Those who had big money but not enough access to foreign currency would buy gold, art or coins and store it outside Brazil.

Hyper-inflation is a disease that undermines society.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.