10 Pfennig

Esens is a small market town in East Frisia, and like hundreds of German municipalities it resorted to printing its own low-denomination Notgeld during the coin shortages of the First World War and its aftermath. These civic emergency issues were administered locally, redeemable only within the issuing town, and typically printed in small runs by whatever commercial printer was available regionally. The 10 Pfennig denomination was the workhorse of small-change Notgeld — covering tram fares, bread, and market transactions when Imperial coinage had vanished into hoarding.

The serial number is the only security measure, which tells you something about the trust model: these notes functioned on local reputation, not on any technical barrier to forgery.