10 Pfennig

The Bank Deutscher Länder was a transitional institution — created by the Western Allied occupation authorities in March 1948 as a precursor to the Bundesbank, it issued currency before a permanent West German state even existed. This 10 Pfennig note appeared as part of the June 1948 currency reform that replaced the Reichsmark, one of the most abrupt and deliberately deflationary monetary resets in postwar European history. Every German resident received an initial allocation of 40 Deutsche Mark; old Reichsmark holdings were converted at a punishing 10:1 ratio.

At roughly 12 million printed, the run was not small, but low-denomination paper coins were quickly displaced by actual coinage. Surviving examples in any condition are rarer than the print figure suggests.