20 Mark

Kulmbach's municipal authority issued this note during the Kleingeldersatz crisis of late 1918, when the collapse of the imperial government and the disappearance of small-denomination Reichsmarks from circulation forced hundreds of German municipalities to print their own emergency money. Carl Bayer's print shop was a local commercial printer — exactly the kind of operation pressed into currency production during this period, with whatever typefaces and paper stock were on hand.

The single signature, Flessa, corresponds to a municipal official rather than a bank director — a reminder that this note's issuing authority was the city administration itself, not any financial institution.