50 Pfennig Vereinigte Harzer Portlandcement- und Kalkindustrie

Elbingerode, in the Harz region of central Germany, was a center of limestone extraction and cement production — the Vereinigte Harzer Portlandcement- und Kalkindustrie being one of the consolidations formed as smaller regional operations merged under industrial pressure in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Like most German industrial Notgeld, this 50 Pfennig piece was issued to address the chronic small-denomination coin shortage that plagued private employers during and immediately after the First World War, when metal coinage was systematically withdrawn from circulation for wartime use.

The Tieste reference places it firmly within the Va classification — a private industrial issuer rather than a municipal authority.