50 Pfennig

Eschweiler's 1918 Notgeld issue belongs to the first wave of municipal emergency currency that flooded Germany after the Reichsbank's small-denomination coin supply collapsed under wartime metal requisitions. Cities, towns, and even individual businesses were authorized — loosely — to fill the gap themselves. Eschweiler, a coal-mining and industrial town in the Rhineland, was among the hundreds that printed their own.

Local printing for local circulation: these notes rarely traveled far and were typically redeemed and destroyed within months, which accounts for why even circulated examples from small issuers like this one are harder to find than their original print runs would suggest.