10 Pfennig

Schleiz was a minor administrative seat in the Thuringian principality of Reuss-jüngere Linie — one of the smallest sovereign states in pre-unification Germany, absorbed into Thuringia only in 1920. This note belongs to the vast wave of municipal Kleingeldscheine issued across Germany from 1917 onward as fractional coinage disappeared from circulation, hoarded by a public that trusted metal over paper. By 1919, with the imperial monetary system in collapse and the new Weimar republic not yet stabilizing supply chains, towns like Schleiz were essentially printing their own petty cash.

Local production at this denomination is typical of the series — inexpensive lithography, thin paper stock prone to splitting at folds.