10 Pfennigs

Helmbrechts is a small textile town in Upper Franconia, and like hundreds of German municipalities it issued its own fractional emergency currency — Notgeld — during the severe coin shortage that gripped Germany from 1916 onward. The official stamp served as the primary authentication device, a practical workaround when formal printing security was neither available nor economical at this scale.

These hyper-local issues were typically printed in very small runs and redeemed quickly once coin circulation normalized, which is precisely why so many survived unused in drawer collections rather than wearing out in trade.