1 Pfennig

Posen's municipal notgeld emerged from the acute small-change shortage that gripped German cities within the first two years of the war, as coin metal was diverted to military production and the Reichsbank's response lagged badly. The Magistrat — the city council of what was then a heavily garrisoned German administrative capital in the Prussian east — issued these locally to keep retail trade functional. Denominations this low were purely practical instruments, not collector pieces, and were printed in large volumes on whatever paper stock was available.

Survival rate for circulated low-denomination municipal notgeld from occupied Polish territories is lower than for equivalent western German issues, partly due to postwar administrative disruption when the city reverted to Polish sovereignty in 1918–19.