50 Pfennig

Weißenfels issued this note under the conditions that produced Germany's first great wave of Kleingeldersatz — the acute small-change shortage that gripped municipalities from around 1916 onward and exploded after the war. Cities, towns, utilities, and even individual businesses printed their own fractional currency because Reichsbank coin simply wasn't circulating. By 1921 the practice was both widespread and, in many cases, an opportunity for civic self-promotion through commissioned artwork.

Boy Peysen was a Hamburg-based graphic artist associated with the Jugendstil-influenced commercial design scene of the early Weimar period. His involvement here is worth noting — Notgeld of this vintage varies enormously in design quality, and attributed commissions are less common than anonymous presswork.