25 Pfennig Gewerbeverein

Prüm is a small town in the Eifel region of western Germany, and this 25 Pfennig note is a product of the Notgeld wave that followed the post-WWI economic dislocation — local merchants' and tradesmen's associations across Germany issued their own emergency scrip when the Reichsbank failed to keep small-denomination coinage in circulation. The Gewerbeverein, a commercial and trades association, acted as guarantor rather than a bank, which gives this piece a different legal character from municipal Notgeld of the same period.

Paper Notgeld from small issuing bodies like this rarely survived in quantity; much was redeemed and pulped once the emergency passed in the mid-1920s.