50 Pfennig

Calbe is a small town in Saxony-Anhalt, and this note is Notgeld — emergency municipal currency issued to address the acute coin shortage that followed Germany's defeat in the First World War. The Reichsbank had neither the metal nor the logistical capacity to keep small denominations in circulation, so local authorities, businesses, and municipalities filled the gap themselves. The Kreisausschuss — the district committee — was the administrative body responsible for issuing here, giving this note an official county-level backing rather than the purely private or commercial origin common to many Notgeld pieces.

The 1919–1920 window places it squarely in the first wave of German municipal issues, before inflation made the whole exercise pointless.