1 Mark

Iserlohn's 1921 Notgeld issues belong to the second wave of German municipal emergency money, produced as the Weimar government struggled to supply small-denomination coinage during the postwar inflation spiral. Cities and towns across the Rhineland and Westphalia were essentially left to self-finance their change supply, and Iserlohn — a Sauerland industrial town with a long metalworking tradition, somewhat ironically given the coin shortage — issued its own series accordingly.

Westphalian Notgeld from this period was produced by a range of local and regional printers with highly variable quality control. Collector demand for decorative Notgeld had already peaked by 1921, so late issues like this one tend toward the utilitarian rather than the elaborate.