25 Pfennig

Wismar's 1922 Notgeld issue belongs to the second wave of German municipal emergency money — not the colorful collector-oriented Serienscheine of 1920–21, but the more utilitarian inflationary stop-gaps issued as the Reichsmark began its terminal slide. By mid-1922, coin shortages and accelerating inflation had made small denominations practically useless in metal form, pushing hundreds of German municipalities to print their own fractional paper. Wismar, a Hanseatic port city on the Baltic with a modest industrial base, was one of dozens of Mecklenburg towns to do so.

Local printing of this kind was common enough that quality control varied enormously from town to town. Wismar's issues were printed within the city itself rather than contracted to the specialist firms — Giesecke & Devrient, Reichsdruckerei — that handled higher-denomination emergency notes.