50 Pfennig

Rastenberg is a small town in Thuringia — population never exceeded a few thousand — yet like hundreds of similarly sized German municipalities in 1921, it issued its own emergency paper currency when chronic coin shortages made everyday commerce nearly impossible. The postwar inflation was already eroding purchasing power before the catastrophic hyperinflation of 1922–23, and Kleingeldersatz notes like this one filled a genuine transactional gap at the local level.

Eduard Giltsch in Jena was a respected regional printer with strong ties to Thuringian Notgeld production, which likely kept costs and turnaround manageable for small issuers without direct access to major printing houses.