10 Pfennig Braunschweigische Staatsbank

Braunschweigische Staatsbank occupied an unusual position among German regional banks — it was a state-owned institution tied directly to the Duchy of Brunswick's finances, and by 1921 it was issuing small-denomination Kleingeldscheine to plug the coin shortage that had gripped Germany since wartime metal requisitioning began stripping copper and nickel from circulation. Appelhans Verlag was primarily a publisher and printer in Braunschweig, not a specialist security press, which is typical of notgeld production generally — municipalities and regional banks took what local capacity they could find.

The watermark is worth noting: at this denomination and in this format, security features were often omitted entirely by other issuers. Its presence here reflects the Staatsbank's attempt to distinguish its emission from the flood of purely municipal notgeld circulating simultaneously.