25 Pfennig

Oldenburg in Holstein was a small market town of perhaps six thousand residents when it issued this note in 1921, part of the vast German Notgeld phenomenon that saw thousands of municipalities print their own fractional currency to compensate for a chronic shortage of small-denomination coins. At the local level, printing was often awarded to whatever stationer or job printer was already serving the town — C. Fränckel Nchfg. C. Will was precisely that kind of firm, a local successor business rather than a specialist banknote printer.

Wilhelm Johannsen's involvement as designer is the detail worth noting. Local Notgeld frequently attracted regional artists and teachers, and the resulting designs vary wildly in sophistication from issue to issue.