50 Pfennig Kaufmännischer Verein

The Kaufmännischer Verein Oels — the merchants' association of Oels (now Oleśnica, Lower Silesia) — issued this note during the peak of Germany's small-change crisis, when municipal authorities, guilds, and private associations alike were legally permitted to issue Notgeld to fill the vacuum left by hoarded or insufficient Reichsbank coinage. Grass, Barth & Comp., operating in Breslau under the W. Friedrich imprint, was a prolific regional producer of such emergency issues throughout Silesia during this period.

The dual signatures of Krause and Liebig indicate authorization at the association's committee level rather than through any municipal banking channel — an arrangement that became standard for trade-body issues in 1921–22.