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Colour for German Banknotes
Blue 100 Mark banknotes issued in Germany between 1910 and 1980.
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The colour of money – colour is a very distinctive feature of any banknote.
In some countries the banknotes tend to have a similar colour – like the US Dollar. In Germany a rich use of colour in the design of the notes is apparent. The colour of a banknote is regarded as a help for us as the consumer and user of banknotes to quickly and easily identify the denomination of a bill.
Traditionally certain colours have been associated with some of the denominations on the German banknotes. The colour blue stood for the 100 Mark note, while the colour brown was reserved for the 1,000 Mark bill. The 100 and 1,000 Mark bills were the first ones to be introduced in 1876 by the Reichsbank. Already in this very first issue this colour scheme was used and we still find it in the 1980 issue of the Bundesbank (in the later issues of the Bundesbank the 1,000 DM note was red, while the 100 DM was still blue).
The notes with smaller denominations do not have such a strong association with colours. We also find sometimes notes with the same design printed in different colours or shades thereof. These make up versions of a bill that can be identified easily.
The use of colours is not a very good security feature, because it has been very easy to reproduce. Only recently the colour has been used more widely for this purpose, due to the introduction of colours that shine under ultraviolet light. This was used for the latest issues of DM by the Bundesbank.
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