10 Mark

Neustadt an der Orla is a small Thuringian market town — population well under ten thousand in 1918 — yet its municipal authority issued this emergency note during the final months of the First World War when small-denomination Reichsbank currency had effectively vanished from everyday commerce. The chronic coin shortage drove hundreds of German municipalities into emergency issuance, and the Stadtgemeindevorstand held legal authority to do so under wartime provisions.

The watermarked paper is notable for a note of this administrative level. Most comparable Thuringian Kleingeldscheine used plain stock; the choice here suggests either requisitioned commercial paper or deliberate anti-counterfeiting precaution by a local printer with access to better materials.