50 Pfennigs

Plön is a small town in Schleswig-Holstein, and its municipal authority — the Magistrat — issued this note as part of the broader Notgeld wave that swept German towns between 1919 and 1922. The chronic coin shortage following the First World War forced local governments, businesses, and even private associations to print their own small-denomination emergency money. Municipal issues like this one were theoretically redeemable at the issuing office, though in practice many towns retired their Notgeld under pressure from the Reichsbank, which was increasingly hostile to the proliferation of local scrip.

Plön's series was printed locally, a common arrangement for smaller municipalities that lacked the budget or connections for outside printers. Local print runs often show inconsistent ink saturation across surviving examples.