Serienscheine (Series Notes)

On this page is a collection Notgeld Notes (Seriensheine) or Series Notes as well as brief information pertaining to each bill or series of bills such as country, city, town, person or theme depicted on the bill.

Notgeld is a term used for the wide variety of mostly German or Austrian emergency money issued by local governments or businesses during wartime and other crisis. Most of the notgeld notes on these pages are Serienscheine or Series Notes (bill that are issued in a series with a common theme) and most will be from 1914-1923.

These interesting footnotes in numismatic history were first produced at the local level by cities, towns, businesses and organizations to fill the need for currency not being met by the government. They were issued for the lowest denominations to the ridiculously high denominations produced during hyperinflation. Practical use was limited and they were often printed to be sold and collected much like one would baseball cards and were often stored in Notgeld Albums. There are thousands of varieties of these notes with wide ranging, artistic, social and political themes printed mostly on paper and sometimes alternative materials such as leather, aluminum foil, and cloth.