5 Pfennig

Nimptsch — now Niemcza in southwestern Poland — was a small Silesian town of a few thousand residents when it issued this note in 1919. Like hundreds of German municipalities that year, it was forced into emergency currency production by a nationwide coin shortage so severe that local authorities could not make change. The Reichsbank acknowledged the crisis but could not resolve it quickly, leaving Gemeinden and Städte to commission their own Kleingeldersatz from commercial printers.

Gebrüder Parcus in Munich handled a large volume of this municipal work across Bavaria and beyond. The serial number is the only security concession — entirely adequate for a note whose entire purpose was making small transactions possible at the butcher or the market.