3 Mark

Dorsten, a small Westphalian town on the Lippe river, issued Notgeld during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany after World War I. Municipal and commercial issuers across the country flooded circulation with low-denomination emergency paper when official coinage effectively vanished — hoarded, melted, or simply not produced in sufficient quantities by a mint system overwhelmed by wartime demands.

The DeNG reference places this within a documented series of six varieties, suggesting Dorsten issued across multiple dates or printings rather than a single run. Worth examining the serial numbering or date field carefully to confirm which of the six this example represents.