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Notgeld bills were printed in staggering profusion, particularly after World War I when Germany's answer to hyperinflation was printing ever greater amounts of money: Notgeld issues were printed legally by cities and firms in small notes (Kleingeldsheine ), typically under one Mark. Some 36,000 different notes of this type were published from 3,658 localities. All in all approximately 163,000 issues of all types of German emergency paper money were published (Coffing, 1988, p. 7) In face of such a massive amount of information, interpretations and generalizations become risky. Authorities on Notgeld seem to agree that a comprehensive grasp of Notgeld in all its variety is not possible. One possible strategy to deal with this limitation is to draw upon methods employed in archaeology where artifactual evidence is often incomplete. For example, writings about Notgeld as a phenomenon could employ the "social interpretive approach" described by Miles Richardson in his article, "A Social [Ideational-Behavioral] Interpretation of Material Culture and its application to Archaeology," in Daniel W. Ingersoll, Jr., and Gordon Bronitsky (Eds.), Mirror and Metaphor: Material and Social Constructions of Reality, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987. Richardson asserts that at some point in the examination of artifacts, researchers must turn away from questions of origins, periodization, manufacture, legal status, and other such technical matters. As important as such matters are for understanding the artifacts themselves, the real focus of archaeological research is the reconstruction of meaning perspectives that comprise a culture. To accomplish such a task, Richardson stresses that investigators must focus attention on the function of artifacts in the hands of people who handled them. Finally, I am interested in purchasing German Notgeld for my collection, and so would be interested in hearing of pieces for sale or learning of businesses that sell German Notgeld. Charles R. Jansen |