Ostheim's Vorschuß- und Sparverein — a local cooperative credit and savings association — issued this five-Pfennig note in 1918 as Notgeld, the emergency small-denomination currency that proliferated across Germany as coin metal was diverted to the war effort and official coin circulation collapsed. Selmar Bayer of Berlin printed enormous quantities of similar municipal and cooperative emergency notes during this period, operating as one of the capital's workhorse printers for this genre.
Cooperative-issued Notgeld is less commonly encountered than municipal examples — most collectors focus on town issues, leaving association notes underrepresented in literature and frequently misattributed.
Ostheim's Vorschuß- und Sparverein — a local cooperative credit and savings association — issued this five-Pfennig note in 1918 as Notgeld, the emergency small-denomination currency that proliferated across Germany as coin metal was diverted to the war effort and official coin circulation collapsed. Selmar Bayer of Berlin printed enormous quantities of similar municipal and cooperative emergency notes during this period, operating as one of the capital's workhorse printers for this genre.
Cooperative-issued Notgeld is less commonly encountered than municipal examples — most collectors focus on town issues, leaving association notes underrepresented in literature and frequently misattributed.