10 Mark

Allenstein's municipal notgeld emerged from the acute coin shortage that struck German-administered towns in the final year of the First World War, when the Reichsbank could no longer guarantee adequate small-denomination circulation. The Stadtgemeinde — the municipal government — was authorized to issue emergency money against its own credit, a stop-gap arrangement that proliferated across hundreds of German and Austrian towns simultaneously in 1918.

Allenstein itself sits in what was then East Prussia, a region that would vote in the July 1920 plebiscite to remain within Germany rather than join Poland — one of the few such votes that actually went decisively in Germany's favor. Whether any of these notes were still in local hands by that vote is unlikely; municipal notgeld of this type was generally withdrawn within months of issue.