I have the Nazi Parody of the American Dollar Bill from WWII and I wanted to know how rare this was and how much this may be worth. I'm uploading an actual scans of the back of the dollar bill
The German parody of US $1 for Italy
In late April of 1945, the United States Fifth Army was preparing to slug it out with entrenched German forces along the Po River in Northern Italy. By the 23rd of the month, the 337th, 338th and 339th Infantry Regiments of the 85th U.S. Infantry Division were crossing the Po and moving rapidly northward. The expected strong German defense never materialized and the Po Valley offensive turned into a complete rout of the Axis forces.
The 339th Regiment raced ahead at full speed, men riding in jeeps mounted with machine guns and even in captured German and Italian staff cars. By 0815 of April 26th, forward elements were entering the town of Verona. Verona was a center of Fascist propaganda. Several major printing plants were located in the city and these were known to have produced stamps, postcards, posters, and pamphlets meant to bolster the Italian morale and will to continue the war.
Colonel Floyd E. Minor, Commanding Officer of the Third Battalion of the 339th, found that because of the headlong retreat of the enemy he had advanced beyond the range of his maps. His men reported that the Germans had left vast quantities of printed material in the now-vacant printing plants and storage facilities. He decided to lead a patrol through the warehouses in search of operational maps of the area.
In a storage building located on a private estate just north of Verona he found maps of the surrounding area, all the way to the Brenner Pass. Continuing to search, he was surprised to find a large bundle of United States $1 Silver Certificates of 1935. The banknotes all bore the serial number D85826026A. The notes had been reproduced by the Germans and had a short Italian-language propaganda message overprinted on the back:
The promises of the Americans are of no value - they look fine and good, but they are only illusions (like this banknote).
Minor stated: "I picked up a bundle of them, about 100 I guess, gave some away and had the rest destroyed."
Posted 08/08/2011 10:29 am
