50 Pfennig

Schwarzburg was a tiny Thuringian village of perhaps a few hundred residents in 1921, better known as an imperial retreat — the Kaiser's Schwarzburg Palace loomed over the valley — than as an economic center. The note was issued during the acute small-change shortage that followed Germany's postwar coin demonetization, when hundreds of municipalities scrambled to print their own fractional Notgeld to keep local trade moving. Printer August Heinecke operated out of nearby Rudolstadt, the regional capital, and supplied Notgeld to multiple Schwarza Valley communities during this period.

The 1921 series from Schwarzburg is among the more localized emissions — tiny issuing authority, minimal print run, short circulation window before Reichsbank reforms made municipal scrip redundant.