Notgeldscheine Deutscher Stadte 1914-1924 und Lebensmittel- Kriegsnotmarken | Replacement money of German cities from 1914-1924 and war food stamps

The presented collector's album contains serial replacement money from the early 1920s and food stamps from World War I. The introduction by Paul Hohner, a trader of replacement money from Stuttgart, who is the designer of the albbillsum and the author of the collection, introduces the concept of replacement money, food stamps and the very idea behind creating the album. The first 5 sheets of parchment paper are pasted with 41 collection bills from 1920-1922. The most numerous year, with 35 pieces, is 1921, 4 bills were issued in 1922, and only 3 in 1920. Most come from present-day North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt – 7 pieces each, followed by Thuringia and Lower Saxony – 5 pieces each. The collection includes only a sample from Bytowo in Pomerania. The collection contains the most common, and therefore cheapest, bills available in the trade at the time. Apart from a collector's rarity, a bill worth 75 pfennigs issued by the board of the Neinstedt municipality in the Harz Mountains (Saxony-Anhalt), the collection lacks more valuable pieces. Beginning on page 11, the album is filled with 33 supply cards for rationed goods – mainly food products issued by the Stuttgart municipality between 1916 and 1920. 4 are complete sheets and 29 pieces are sections from various sheets from the years 1916–1918. In Germany, during World War I, supply cards were usually issued for specific months and were delivered on a weekly basis. The exception were cards for some industrial products, e.g. soap, which were issued on a semi-annual basis and redeemed on a monthly basis. Most of them, as many as 15, refer to the ration of low-quality bread flour and home-made bread enriched with various additives. The album also includes cards for eggs, butter, sugar, cheese, meat, groats, potatoes and soap. Such albums were assembled by Hohner in various configurations and then sold as souvenirs from the period of substitute money or inflation. Mieszko Pawłowski