5 Pfennig

Neustadt am Kulm is a small market town in Upper Franconia, and like hundreds of similarly sized German municipalities in 1917, it issued emergency small-change notes — Kleingeldscheine — because the wartime metal shortage had pulled pfennig coins out of circulation almost entirely. The Reichsbank offered no relief at the fractional level, so local authorities filled the gap themselves.

J. P. Himmer in Augsburg was a reliable regional printer with a long track record of municipal jobbing work. The official stamp served as the primary authentication device — without a functioning issuing office behind it, the note was worthless paper.