50 Pfennig Fritz Merbach, Schafhof

Notgeld from rural issuers like Fritz Merbach — a private farm or estate operator rather than a municipality or savings bank — is among the more unusual material from the 1921 inflation wave. Schafhof, a small settlement outside Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria, generated almost no paper money of its own, making this one of the very few issues attributable to the locality.

Will Foerster was an active designer of Bavarian Notgeld during this period, and the presence of a watermark on a private agricultural issue is worth noting — most small commercial Notgeld skipped security features entirely.