50 Pfennig

Herford's 1920 Pfennig notgeld was one of thousands of municipal emergency issues flooding German circulation as the Reichsbank struggled to keep small-denomination coinage in supply. The copper and nickel shortages that had gutted everyday transactions during the war years had not resolved by 1920 — if anything, hoarding and metal speculation made the coin famine worse in the immediate postwar period, forcing cities and towns to print their own fractional currency whether the central authorities approved or not.

The print run of over twelve million pieces is high for a town of Herford's size, suggesting the notes circulated well beyond the city limits into the surrounding Ostwestfalen region — a common pattern when neighboring municipalities had not yet organized their own issues.