50 Pfennig

Bad Kissingen's municipal authority issued this note under the Notgeld system, which authorized German towns to print emergency small-change currency when metal coinage effectively vanished from circulation during the war. By 1917 the Reichsbank had long since lost control of the fractional currency problem, and thousands of municipalities were filling the gap themselves.

The embossed stamp — applied by the Stadtmagistrat's own seal press — was the primary anti-counterfeiting measure, a crude but locally verifiable mark of official sanction. Bad Kissingen, a spa town dependent on a wealthier seasonal clientele, had particular incentive to maintain credible small-denomination exchange.