50 Pfennig Vorschuß- und Sparverein

Ostheim vor der Rhön is a small market town in the former Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, and this note was issued by its local credit cooperative — a Vorschuß- und Sparverein — rather than by any municipal or state authority. These cooperative societies, established across German-speaking territories during the nineteenth century largely on the Schulze-Delitzsch model, occasionally issued emergency small-change notes during the 1918 Kleingeldnot, when coin metal had long since been requisitioned for war production.

Keyßner'sche Hofbuchdruckerei in Meiningen was the natural choice for such work, being the court printer for the duchy and handling routine local job printing throughout the region.