1 Pfennig Ertel and Sohn

Ertel & Sohn was a Munich-based precision instrument manufacturer — optical and geodetic equipment primarily — and this tiny Pfennig note is a piece of Notgeld issued from their factory canteen during the acute small-change shortage that followed Germany's postwar economic dislocation. Municipalities, businesses, and private firms across Germany flooded the market with emergency scrip between 1918 and 1923, and canteen tokens of this type were among the most ephemeral: printed for internal use, redeemed quickly, and rarely preserved.

The strip format, at 50 × 15 mm, is among the narrowest produced during the Notgeld period.