50 Pfennigs

Creußen is a small town in Upper Franconia with a history punching well above its size — it was a major stoneware production center in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the local Bürgergeld tradition ran deep. This 1916 Notgeld issue belongs to the first wave of German municipal emergency currency, authorized after the Reichsbank's metal coinage effectively vanished from circulation in 1914–1915 due to hoarding and wartime metal requisitions.

The watermarked paper is worth noting. Many Notgeld issues at this scale used plain stock; a municipality of Creußen's size sourcing watermarked paper in 1916 suggests either procurement through a regional printing house with existing stock, or deliberate anti-counterfeiting caution unusual for such a low-value instrument.