50 Pfennigs

Nikolai (now Mikołów in Poland) was a small Upper Silesian industrial town, and like hundreds of German municipalities in 1918, its local authority stepped in to plug a severe shortage of small change — coins had been hoarded or melted as the war ground through its final year. These hyper-local Notgeld issues were printed by whoever was available; Joh. Malek was a local printing firm, not a specialist banknote house, which shows in the workmanship.

Upper Silesia's political status would become bitterly contested within three years, with plebiscites and armed insurgency following the armistice. This note predates all of that by months.