50 Pfennig - Schönwald

Schönwald is a small town in the Black Forest, and like hundreds of German municipalities in 1920, it issued its own emergency coinage — Notgeld — to address the chronic shortage of small-denomination metal currency that followed the First World War. The Reichsbank had stripped copper and nickel from circulation for war production, and zinc became the default substitute for civic issuers who needed something physically durable enough to pass hand to hand.

Funck catalogues multiple varieties for this municipality, suggesting more than one die was used in production — not unusual for local issues where the striking was often contracted to regional workshops rather than official mints.