10 Pfennig Horst an der Emscher

Horst an der Emscher was a mining and industrial commune in the Ruhr, and by 1917 the chronic wartime shortage of small change had pushed hundreds of German municipalities into printing their own emergency money — Kleingeldscheine. The Sparkasse here acted as the practical issuing body, a role many German savings banks took on during this period when the Reichsbank simply could not supply enough low-denomination coin to keep local commerce moving.

Selmar Bayer was a Berlin printer regularly engaged for this kind of municipal work. The H54.1e designation in the DeNG catalogue suggests multiple variants exist for this type — likely differing in signature, stamp, or minor typographic detail, which is typical of how these Scheine were updated across successive printings.