50 Pfennig

Idar's notgeld issue is a product of the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany from 1916 onward, as wartime metal requisitions stripped coins from daily commerce. Stadt Idar — then still a separate municipality from the neighboring Oberstein, the two would not merge until 1933 — issued this 50 Pfennig note through E. Keßler, a local print house, keeping both production and authorization entirely within the town's own administration. Signed by Engel as Stadtbürgermeister, it carries direct civic authority rather than the commercial surrogates issued by some German merchants during the same period.