Buchdruckerei C. Haas was a printing house — the name translates directly as "C. Haas Print Shop" — and its issuance of notgeld during the post-WWI shortage crisis reflects just how broadly emergency coinage authority was distributed in Germany between 1916 and the early 1920s. Municipalities, private firms, transit companies, and local merchants all plugged the gap left by hoarded state coinage. A Bavarian printing house striking its own zinc 10 Pfennig pieces is unremarkable by notgeld standards, but it illustrates the granular desperation of that moment.
Buchdruckerei C. Haas was a printing house — the name translates directly as "C. Haas Print Shop" — and its issuance of notgeld during the post-WWI shortage crisis reflects just how broadly emergency coinage authority was distributed in Germany between 1916 and the early 1920s. Municipalities, private firms, transit companies, and local merchants all plugged the gap left by hoarded state coinage. A Bavarian printing house striking its own zinc 10 Pfennig pieces is unremarkable by notgeld standards, but it illustrates the granular desperation of that moment.