50 Pfennig Einswarden, J. Frerichs

J. Frerichs & Co. was a shipbuilding firm operating on the Weser estuary near Nordenham — the kind of industrial employer that, during the early Weimar inflation years, found itself unable to source adequate small denomination coinage to pay its workforce. Notgeld like this filled that gap directly at the factory level, issued by the company itself rather than any municipal authority. Circulation was essentially captive: workers received it, local shops accepted it out of necessity, and it rarely traveled far.

The watermarked paper is worth noting — most emergency industrial scrip of this period skipped security features entirely. That Frerichs bothered suggests either available stock or a concern about internal counterfeiting.