10 Pfennig Hoffmanns Hotel Falk

Norderney, one of the East Frisian Islands, was a fashionable North Sea resort by the early twentieth century, and the chronic shortage of small-denomination Reichsmark coinage during and after the First World War prompted dozens of local businesses — hotels included — to issue their own Kleingeldersatz. Hoffmanns Hotel Falk would have circulated this 10 Pfennig note among guests and local tradespeople as a practical substitute, redeemable at the hotel itself.

Private hotel notgeld of this type was never legal tender and carried real counterparty risk — worthless if the issuer folded before redemption.