3 Mark Einswarden; Frerichs & Co.

J. Frerichs & Co. was a shipbuilding firm on the Weser estuary, and this 3 Mark piece is a classic example of the Notgeld wave that swept German industrial towns in August 1914, when the Reich's mobilization order triggered an immediate hoarding of metallic coin. Factories and municipal authorities across the country printed their own emergency fractional currency almost overnight, often on whatever cardboard or paper stock was available locally — grey cardboard being the most expedient option for a shipyard administration pressed for time.

Three Mark was an unusually high denomination for early wartime Notgeld, most of which clustered around Pfennig values.