25 Pfennig

Waldbröl is a small town in the Bergisches Land region of western Germany, and this 25 Pfennig Notgeld was issued by the district committee — the Kreisausschuss — rather than a municipal authority, making it a county-level emergency issue rather than the more common town variety. The acute shortage of small-denomination Reichsbank coinage after World War One forced even rural administrative bodies to step in as issuers. Fastenrath in Elberfeld was a prolific printer of Westphalian and Rhenish Notgeld during this period, and the inclusion of a watermark on a low-value local note is worth noting — many comparable issues skipped security features entirely.