'Happy are the people with a hobby, for they have two worlds in which to live'

A big Hello from me!   I call myself the 'notgeldman from England' and now 'www*notgeld*com' on eBay. After having taught myself the basics of html coding, this is now my second attempt at designing a website....although I have now progressed to a CMS package (Content Management System). I have been collecting German notgeld (pronounced 'note gelt') for over 40 years now.

The scan below, shows a scarce uncut sheet of 6 pieces issued in Bleicherode, dated '1.3.1921' and all unusually, without their serial numbers!
  

I became interested in them when I was a young boy, aged about 8, when I purchased a bag full of notgeld and paid 3p each for them!!! I collect all types of German notgeld, except for inflationary issues and coin issues. My favourite types are the Bielefeld 100m stoffgeld pieces with different edges and borders. I have written a notgeld reference covering these pieces with a new catalogue numbering system and colour scans depicting the different types. Please email me if you are interested or want to find out more. I have also written 'German Gems' which comes in 2 parts......'A-L' & 'M-Z', which are downloadable '.pdf' files, which together can be seen as the encyclopedia of German notgeld. A must for any true notgeld collector..........full of fascinating information and translations of a few of the German verses etc. etc.

I have over 17,000 different German notgeld pieces in my collection, which is based on the note's original face value of 1 pfennig to 1000 marks. I believe it to be the largest 'private' German notgeld collection in the UK. The British Museum has a collection which is around the same number of pieces, but which covers all face values, including the mass of hyper-inflationary issues. 

One of the scarcest pieces I have is the 1.5Gm (goldmark) leather note issued in Poessneck (in the former East Germany), known as 'toe and heel'. They were issued during the high inflation as wertbestaendiges notgeld. The value of the note lay in the value of the leather which could really be used as toe or heel for repairing shoes!

Another 3 scarce pieces I have in my collection are Bielefeld 100m stoffgeld pieces (money made from a material......linen, silk, velvet etc.) which each have a catalogue value listed as 'LP' - (Liebhaberpreis), around the 1000 euro each or higher price bracket.

I hope this page assists other notgeld collectors and also attracts others to start collecting them. Please email me with any comments or questions regarding the topic. I am a private collector and not a banknote dealer, although I always have serienscheine/verkehrsausgaben/inflationary/POW etc.etc. notes to swap or trade and currently ask for an average of 1 euro per note, equivalent to about 60p sterling, for any 'odds'. (The going price from dealer shops here in England (in 2010) is.....12 pieces for 10 pounds sterling). Complete sets are slightly more, average of 4 euros for a set of 3 pieces. (1 euro more as you are buying a complete set, which is usually what the collectors want). German notgeld prices have risen gradually over the years and auction prices are very strong.

Some of the scans will show the reverse side of the note(s) if you move your mouse over the image. Please bear with me as this is quite time consuming to get all the images to do this. Both images on the homepage (Lopischewo spielkarten and Papenburg serienscheine) have been coded and work. In addition, under 'Other/aluminium foil' the gold foil inflationary piece has also been done.

I live in England, in the county of Cheshire. Why not start collecting German NOTGELD?? These notes are beautifully detailed, very colourful and fairly readily available, although they do seem far harder to come by nowadays. (They were issued nearly 100 years ago!) Scarcer sets quite often reach prices far higher than their catalogue price. Why not start trying to build up your German notgeld collection? Email me with any queries you may have on the topic and I will endeavour to answer them all.

HAPPY NOTGELD COLLECTING!!

I am a keen mountain biker, although it does seem to get more difficult the older I get! Other interests I have are home D.I.Y. , home computing (including coding and designing this website), judo (currently a brown belt, but half-way to earning my black belt - picture below was taken when I was a blue belt and just after I had won silver at the Cheshire Championships), training my 2 dogs.....a 1 yr old Rottweiler dog (Rio) and a very lovely natured Rottweiler bitch (Roxy) and also travelling. (We recently lost Samson, our white German shepherd dog, to old age. He can be seen pictured below, when he was in his youth). What a handsome boy he was!!

I work in I.T. (Information Technology) where I lead a small team of Operation Analysts....for a leading worldwide financial institution.

I have visited France, Spain, Menorca, Ibiza, Tenerife, Germany, Luxembourg, Republic of Ireland, Greece (including Rhodes, Corfu and Crete), Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, The Bahamas, Jamaica, the former Yugoslavia, The U.S.A. (Florida & Las Vegas), Albania, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Tunisia, The Seychelles, Cuba and most recently......The Cape Verde Islands.

I have met in person.....Colin & Simon Narbeth, Shaun Aspinall, Kai Lindman, Reinhard Tieste & Beate Rauch.......all of whom are very knowledgeable on the subject of notgeld and in my humble opinion are 100% trustworthy.

Below are pictures of Roxy (one of my current Rottweilers) and Samson, who unfortunately has passed away, but was very much loved. (The picture of me in my judo 'gi' was taken just after I had won silver medal at the Cheshire Championships, when I fought for the Warrington Warjukwai team (judo warrior).