Geislingen an der Steige issued this Kleingeldersatz note in 1918 as small-change coinage had effectively vanished from circulation — hoarded, melted, or redirected to wartime metal demands. Municipal authorities across Germany were empowered to fill the gap with locally issued Notgeld, and Stähle & Friedel in Stuttgart handled production for dozens of such commissions in Baden-Württemberg during this period.
The watermarked paper is worth noting — many comparable municipal issues of 1918 used plain stock, making the security specification here a modest but deliberate step above the bare minimum.
Geislingen an der Steige issued this Kleingeldersatz note in 1918 as small-change coinage had effectively vanished from circulation — hoarded, melted, or redirected to wartime metal demands. Municipal authorities across Germany were empowered to fill the gap with locally issued Notgeld, and Stähle & Friedel in Stuttgart handled production for dozens of such commissions in Baden-Württemberg during this period.
The watermarked paper is worth noting — many comparable municipal issues of 1918 used plain stock, making the security specification here a modest but deliberate step above the bare minimum.