50 Pfennig Stadtbank

Striegau — now Strzegów in southwestern Poland — was a mid-sized Silesian textile town when its Stadtbank issued this note during the inflationary emergency that consumed Germany in the early 1920s. The note is one of thousands of Notgeld issues from that period, but F. A. Brockhaus in Leipzig was an unusual choice of printer: the firm was far better known as a publisher of encyclopedias and reference works than as a banknote producer, and its involvement in emergency currency printing reflects how broadly the demand for Notgeld outstripped conventional security printers.

Bruno Handke's design credit is worth noting — he was a Leipzig-based commercial artist active in this period, and his name appears on a handful of Notgeld commissions from Brockhaus during 1921.