50 Pfennig - Westfalen Freiherr vom Stein

Westphalia's 1921 aluminum Pfennig issues belong to the vast wave of German Notgeld — emergency money produced by municipalities, districts, and regional bodies to compensate for acute coin shortages in the postwar economy. The Province of Westphalia invoked Freiherr vom Stein, the Prussian reformer who had deep regional ties, as a pointed political choice: Stein had been born at Nassau but spent formative years administering Westphalian affairs, and his name carried weight as a symbol of Prussian civic reform rather than Wilhelmine militarism.

Aluminum was chosen purely out of necessity — copper and nickel remained strategically controlled.