10 Pfennigs

Cottbus notgeld was issued under municipal authority during the acute coin shortage that gripped Germany from 1916 onward, when wartime metal demands stripped everyday transactions of workable small change. The Magistrat issued these fractional emergency notes to keep local commerce functional — a purely practical measure, not a commemorative one, which distinguishes early wartime notgeld from the collector-targeted Serienscheine that flooded the market after 1920.

Printed locally rather than by one of the major specialist houses, which accounts for the relatively plain production values common to Cottbus issues at this denomination.