5 Mark Kreis Mohrungen

Mohrungen — now Morąg in northeastern Poland — was a small administrative district in the Province of East Prussia, and its 1918 notgeld issue was a direct response to the wartime coin shortage that had stripped everyday commerce of small change across Germany. The Kreiskommunalkasse, the district treasury rather than any banking institution, was the issuing authority — a cleaner arrangement than the ad hoc municipal issues from the same period, which often had ambiguous redemption backing.

The embossed stamp served as the primary authentication device, a low-cost but legally defensible measure common to Prussian district issues when engraved security printing was neither accessible nor affordable. Reinhold Kühn's Elbing operation was the natural choice for small regional clients throughout East Prussia.