1 Mark

Elmshorn, a modest textile and trading town on the Krückau River west of Hamburg, was among hundreds of German municipalities forced into emergency currency printing as the Reichsmark's purchasing power collapsed in the early Weimar period. H. W. Köbner & Co. in nearby Altona was a practical choice — regional printers handled the bulk of Schleswig-Holstein's Notgeld output, and transport costs mattered when margins were thin and time shorter still.

The dual facsimile signatures of the Magistrat were a common administrative shorthand, though they gave these notes at least a formal veneer of civic authority. Legally, they were obligations of the city itself — redeemable in theory, ignored in practice once inflation rendered fixed denominations worthless within months.