50 Pfennig

Lorch im Rheingau, a small wine town on the right bank of the Rhine at the mouth of the Wisper valley, issued this note as part of the broader Notgeld phenomenon that swept German municipalities in the early 1920s. With the Reichsbank unable to supply adequate small change during the inflationary spiral following the First World War, local authorities — including tiny Rheingau communes — were left to fill the gap themselves.

Gebrüder Parcus in Munich was among the more prolific printers of municipal Notgeld, handling commissions from hundreds of small issuers across Bavaria and beyond. The watermarked paper on a note of this face value is a minor technical detail worth noting — many comparable issues from the same period dispensed with security features entirely.