#notgeld

This is a 1920s German notgeld note commemorating laundry detergent entrepreneur Eduard Hoffmann. He used the grooming white cat on his products to symbolize cleanliness. Source.

And finally, 2 Marks of "Jubiläumsgeld" or Jubilee money celebrating the 675th anniversary on the city of Dorsten. The reverse shows the medieval townspeople pouring honey and throwing bees onto the intruders below.

Notgeld (German for 'emergency money' or 'necessity money') is money issued by an institution in a time of economic or political cri-sis. The issuing institution is usually one without official sanction from the central government. This usually occurs when not enough state-produced money is available from the central bank. In parti-cular, notgeld generally refers to money produced in Germany  and  Austria during World War I and the Interwar period. Issuing institu-tions could be a town's savings banks, municipalities and private or state-owned firms. Nearly all issues contained an expiry date, after which time they were invalid. Issues without dates ordinarily had an expiry announced in a newspaper or at the place of issuance.

(via British Museum)

1923. A woman uses banknotes to light her stove during hyperinflation in Weimar Germany

New pop-up exhibit in our lobby! Notgeld, German emergency money issued by towns and companies between 1914 and 1923 to counter money shortages during World War I and hyperinflation after. Many feature elaborate color illustrations of local legends or landmarks.