1 Mark Thann

Thann was an Alsatian town under German administration in 1914, and this note reflects the emergency currency scramble that hit municipalities across the Reich in the opening weeks of the war. When the Reichsbank curtailed coin circulation to preserve metal reserves, thousands of local treasuries — Gemeindekassen like Thann's — issued their own small-denomination Notgeld virtually overnight, often with minimal authorization and even less coordination.

The watermarked paper is worth noting: many comparable 1914 municipal issues used whatever stock was available, making a security feature this deliberate relatively uncommon at this tier of issuer.