Glacial Errata, No. 14

One

For no reason at all this week, I was thinking about financial collapses, which led me back to the strange history of German notgeld (“emergency money”). During the hyper-inflationary years of the Weimar era, currency shortages forced cities and municipalities to, in essence, make their own short-term money in order to conduct basic transactions.

Two

Because this was, strictly speaking, illegal, cities found that the less their notgeld looked like actual money, the safer they were. And so, over time, they got creative, churning out local fiat currency that was increasingly singular and interesting. Given the economic crisis, they were often used to make not-so-subtle commentary on the issues of the day.

Three

Some cities hired well-known artists to design their notgeld, leading to some really interesting and complex work and what remains, perhaps, one of the most creative periods in the design of currency. And while they come in all varieties, me being me I’m drawn to the strange prevalence of Grim Reaper-themed notes.

Four

I first learned about notgeld years ago from my friend Erin Sullivan, who’s Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at LACMA. I ended up writing a short history of notgeld for the wonderful, and sadly defunct, magazine Topic. It’s website is entirely gone, but you can read an archived version of the piece via the Internet Archive here. There’s a lot more historical details and some quotes from Erin with more background if you’re interested.

Five

If you’re interested, there’s a thriving market for notgeld, which are not terribly expensive (being currency, a lot of them were printed). This website is a good place to start.