50 Pfennig

Buer was an independent city in Westphalia until its forced incorporation into Gelsenkirchen in 1928 — a merger it resisted politically for years. This 50 Pfennig note belongs to the wave of municipal Notgeld issued across Germany in 1918 as the imperial government's metal coinage vanished from circulation, hoarded or melted down under wartime pressure. Thousands of towns printed their own emergency notes that year, but Buer's issues are among the more localized, reflecting the brief window in which it still existed as a distinct administrative entity.