25 Pfennig Kaufmännischer Verein

Kaufmännischer Verein — literally "commercial association" — was a common form of merchant or trade guild organization across German-speaking regions, and during the Inflationszeit these bodies frequently issued their own Notgeld to keep local trade moving when Reichsbank coins vanished from circulation. The Cottbus branch was one of dozens of such associations that stepped into the gap left by the coin shortage of 1921, before the hyperinflationary collapse fully took hold the following year.

The validation stamp is the note's only real security measure — without it, the slip was essentially blank paper. Unstamped examples surface occasionally and are worth considerably less.