5 Pfennig Vorschuß- und Sparverein

Ostheim's Vorschuß- und Sparverein — a cooperative savings and loan association — issued this emergency piece in 1917 under the wartime Notgeld framework that permitted small local bodies to produce low-denomination scrip when official coinage disappeared from circulation entirely. German copper and nickel had been requisitioned for military use, making sub-ten-pfennig pieces genuinely absent from everyday commerce. Selmar Bayer, a Berlin printing house, handled the physical production for numerous small community issuers during this period.

At 5 Pfennig, this is about as low in face value as Notgeld gets.