50 Pfennige

Recklinghausen's 1921 Kleingeldscheine — emergency small-change notes — filled the vacuum left by the acute coin shortage that had plagued Germany since the war years. Metal had been redirected, hoarded, or simply worn out of circulation, and municipal authorities across the Ruhr were left to improvise their own fractional currency. The city was at the heart of coal country, and the Ruhr's mining economy ran on small transactions that required exactly the denominations the Reichsbank could no longer reliably supply.

These municipal issues had no legal tender status beyond their issuing locality and were officially temporary — though "temporary" stretched, in practice, well into the inflation spiral that followed.