5 Pfennig

Altenburg issued this note in 1917 under the Stadtrat's authority as wartime metal shortages made even the smallest copper and zinc coins functionally unavailable — a predicament shared by hundreds of German municipalities that year. The result was an explosion of Kriegsnotgeld at the Pfennig level, much of it printed by Leipzig firms already equipped for commercial jobbing work. C. G. Naumann was one such house, better known for book and commercial printing than security work, which shows in the modest production values typical of this tier of emergency coinage substitutes.

Saxe-Altenburg had ceased to exist as an independent duchy just two years after this note was issued, absorbed into Thuringia in 1920.