I recently purchased a bunch of notes and I don't know anything about them. I'd like to put them into Banknote. Can someone fill me in on this one and perhaps tell me where I can find the info online to do the research myself. Thanks.

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That's an Austrian one. Steegen 10 Heller. Sorry I probably shouldn't have removed them so you could get the info.

Cannot actually tell you anything about this one ... But it is a 10 heller note from the Austrian town of Steegen, in the state of Oberösterreich - Upper Austria.

Christian

Thanks to all. How's about this one.

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I always liked the winter scene on that one. Tabbs could probably tell you a lot more of what that says than I can.

Altenau is a small town in the Western Harz, in the German state of Lower Saxony. Apart from that, I can once again only tell you what I see in the picture ...

That note (or coupon) was issued in May 1921 and expired in November 1921. Guess that thing with the bear claws (?) is the CoA. On the left, three women called Altenauer Klatschweiber - "Old gossips from Altenau". On the right it says "Schi Heil" (skiers greeting, wishing him/her luck and success) and "Bahn frei" which means Go Ahead but also Out of the Way.

The other side is a winter scenery (duh ...) with two lines that sort of rhyme: "Winter Friends, Man and Woman / Come skiing in Altenau". Well, "Schneeschuh" actually means snowshoe, so Schneeschuh-Lauf would be snow shoe run. But that is not what is depicted ...

Christian

(Edit: Friends, not Joy.)

That's way more information than I ever had.

How's about some help on this one too.

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Thank you. I used your info on my album on fotki. I gave you credit for the info. Hope that's ok. I'll do the same on Banknote.

I agree. The winter scene is terrific. These notes are really neat. I like the color schemes and most of the images are pretty neat. I'm looking for a source of info for id'ing the notes. Anyone have any suggestions?

I'll try the ANA Library early in the week.

I had a book on Notgeld, but I ended up sending it to Franz. I'll try and find the title.

This was the one I had, but... it wasn't the greatest. There weren't a lot of pictures, but it really did help with identifying what the pieces were.

http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?q...3gambpgWbQ0IDMA

That one is tougher because the text on the back (lower image) is not in standard German but a local version of Plattdeutsch (Low German) ...

Ahaus is in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany, near the Dutch city of Enschede. Hermann Landois studied theology but was also a scientist, and founded the zoo in Münster as well as a Cats Haters Club. That motto below the monument says something like:

A long pipe full of Oldenkott (a tobacco brand then made in Ahaus) is more than a thousand years of honor and fame. Aoltbeer (some kind of beer) in the pot, that is and stays the real thing.

And "De Smöker" ... again, Low German. Guess you can guess what it means.

Christian

Fine, just note that "Winterfreunde" is "winter friends". I must have overlooked the N first. And of course I don't want people to say "Ha, that idiot has no clue about German!"

(By the way, when I write about Altenau being in Lower Saxony, etc., that refers to where these places are now. At the time when those notes were issued, they may have been Prussian or whatever ...)

Christian

Thank you. The Winter Friends has been changed.

Which comes rather close to several dialects in Dutch.

Indeed. Now Frisian is a pretty different story, hehe.

Christian

Well. go all north then to Ost-Friesland and hang out for a couple of years there

Oh, and one note: Frisian is not a dialect, but an official language. In fact, it's the oldest Germanic language still being used.
It's the second official language here in the netherlands and all official documents in Friesland, the province where I live are bilingual, just as place name signs etc.:

Art, I like languages, and I had about eight years of German in school, from the 7th grade through college -- in fact, my first class before the 7th grade was at a college -- but I find Notgeld a bit of a challenge. If you are going in for these in a big way, you might want to learn some German, and get a dictionary and grammar. Even a class in conversational German for tourists would be helpful.

Never having been in Germany, however, I would not have understood "Bahn frei!" unless it was explained. I would have guessed it was for a free railroad pass.

I've tried using a few online translators on some of the text but haven't had much success. A German translation dictionary is a good idea. I think I can borrow one from the local library. I'm also going to contact the ANA Library folks and get a few good books on Notgeld. There's one by Cotter - I think that's supposed to be one of the most complete.

I ordered the Coffer book on Notgeld from the ANA Library. I'll let you all know how much hlep it is when it arrives. (I do love the ANA Library. Their new website search and print book info section is excellent.)

Here's the link to an interesting article about NotGeld by Coffer. A longish read but worth it if you have any interest at all.

Courtney Coffing Notgeld Article.

Here's another note that I could use some help with. I can find a city called Koln when I search on google, but nothing named Roln. I'm guessing I'm just not reading the script properly. Any help, please?







Thanks.

I bet that's a "K", Art.

Check the seal at the obverse, what's the word in the bottom of the seal?

It sure is. And Köln is the fourth biggest city in Germany (pop. almost a million), hehe.

Christian

Tried that still looked like an R to me. But I bet it's really a K.

Well, the seal has uppercase "Latin" characters only - including a K. Köln is what you call Cologne in English. The Lord Mayor whose signature you can see on the note is a famous one, by the way: Konrad Adenauer, who later became the very first Chancellor (chief of government) of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The guy in the funny uniform is possiby a Roter Funke, nowadays (and then) primarily a Karneval organization. http://www.rote-funken.de/ The building in the background could be the old City Hall, but I am not sure about that.

Christian

Thanks to all. I've updated my notgeld photos section.

I have about 45 pieces of notgeld, how do you tell if they are german or austrian? I know a bit of the background behind them, but my german is a BIT rusty! Austria uses hellers, right? Germany doesn't? Someone help!

Right. On German Notgeld (notes or coins) from the early1920s you would see "Mark" and "Pfennig"; for Austrian pieces of that time it would be "Krone(n)" and "Heller".

For details ... post pix.

Christian

A good way to tell if it's Austrian is they are Hellers. German ones are Pfennigs and Marks.

Thank you for the help! I think I am going to have to try to find a catalog for those or something. Any suggestions about the best way for a newbie to try to ID that stuff? I love a good puzzle! lol!

I too have had a few lost evenings in trying to decipher the darned notes. My latest attempt was at a Low German Dictionary: http://www.mennolink.org/doc/lg/ but it was of no use with the notes I was working with. I have tried online translations in Low German, High German, Dutch, but have not had a good success rate with those from Germany. The Austrian ones were simpler, as I guess they had fewer dialects, but I really don't know.

One guess I have is that as they were printed locally, then the dialects were likely containing colloquialisms (sp?) and those may not be in the dictionaries. I used to work with a guy from Taiwan and English was his 4th language, adn he would get stumped on some terms a lot - they just made no sense the first time he heard them. Imagine trying to look up Ya'll, howdy-do!, or "I gotta' get me a mess o' them greens" in a dictionary - - I think that's where some of them are lacking. My latest purchases were surprising as they had a company name on them that I thought was something else.... I would never have found out if I hadn't just plain typed it into google and had it come up - Still in business!

I think I'm on year 2 with "Wat Mutt, Dat Mutt" - My guess is that it is something like 'what must be done will be done', but I have no real idea.

It is also very hard to read the older german script in some of them. I was discussing this with a friend of mine whose mother is from Germany, and he said that she never learned the old script, but that his grandmother can read it with ease. I might take him up on an offer to have him get her to try her hand at some of my more difficult ones.

Well, that's pretty much what it means.

It's a german dialect, that comes close to Dutch.

In Dutch, it would say:

"wat moet, dat moet"

The old printed types (Schwabacher, Fraktur) are not that difficult to read, I think, except for a few characters that are either unknown in English or just look weird - see the capital S and K in the note from Cologne that Art posted. What is kind of tough are the "Gothic" (Kurrent, Sütterlin) handwriting styles used until the early 1940s ...

Christian

It's all German to me!!!!!

I can't read any of it.

Or the "S" that looks like a "G".

Look at the following candy box. Despite what you may see, it reads Sisu. That "G" is an "S" and that "f" is an "s".

Sisu candy

Yep, the same S as in "Stadt" in the (now gone) note above ... Kind of odd, by the way, that the nazi government continued to use Fraktur on the coins even after it had officially been branded "Jewish" by them.

Christian

Note is back. I had to move it to my Notgeld folder and that changes the address.

Thanks, Art. See how the capital S in "Stadt" (on your note) and in "Sisu" (on the candy box) looks like a "G"? About as confusing as the K looking like an R. Sure, if one sees an uppercase G right next to an uppercase S, it is relatively easy to tell the difference. But I assume it's a little more difficult anyway without knowing the language and thus the possible context ...

Don't have any notgeld bills myself, but I have a post card with a note from Cologne. (Lived there for a couple of years.) Face value "Hundert Billionen Mark". Which in US English would be 100,000 billion marks. Whew.

Christian

I've got a couple of stamps in the hundred thousand Mark range

I have a few more that I'd like some help with. Thanks in advance to all of you.

Here's the first.

Here's the second. Again, thanks.

Both are from Austria, but the first one seems to be a donation receipt rather than Notgeld. It was issued by an organization that wanted Austria to be a part of Germany - an idea which after the lost WW1 was kind of popular at least in some parts of Austria.

The obverse shows Germany (which according to these people would include Austria) as a boat, and a poem written by Emmanuel Geibel:
"Wer da fährt nach großem Ziel,
lern' am Steuer ruhig sitzen,
unbekümmert, wenn am Kiel
Lob und Tadel hochauf spritzen."
Which basically means that, if you have a major goal, pursue it and stay calm no matter whether you are praised or criticized.

To be continued ...

Christian

The second one is a "cash voucher" from Seekirchen; the reverse actually says that it was issued to fight the lack of small change. The town issues vouchers up to a limit of 40,000 crowns which will, at the end of the year (1920), be exchanged into legal tender cash. The issue of these voucher is covered or backed; don't know the correct English terms but it means that the financial basis of these vouchers is solid ...

Christian

Thanks Christian that's a big help.

Well gang, I've scanned some more notgeld and will post some here for help with ID and information. Thanks in advance.





Updated -- Thanks to T_3 for the info.

Obverse
Kassenschein über Dreißig Heller
Marktgemeinde Telfs
Giltig bis 31. Jänner 1921
Der Bürgermeister:
Visebürgerm.:
Kassier:

Reverse
7. Auflage
Wagner Innsbruck



Cash note for thirty heller
Market town Telfs
Valid until 31st of January 1921
The Mayor:
Deputy Mayor:
Cashier:



7th edition
Wagner Innsbruck



Wagner Innsbruck seems to me the printer of the note. They could be this company

On the site of Telfs, click "virt. Rundgang"

Thank you for the information. That's a beautiful town and the mountains in the distance are magnificent.

Can anyone tell me anything about this note. I believe it's from a town in Austria called Stein. I may be misreading though.