50 Pfennige

Recklinghausen's 1921 Notgeld issue came out of the broader municipal emergency currency wave that swept German cities as the Reichsbank struggled to keep low-denomination coinage in circulation. Postwar metal shortages and rampant hoarding meant that towns across the Ruhr issued their own paper scrip simply to make change — not from any local monetary ambition, but out of practical necessity.

The single "Hamm" signature likely refers to a senior Magistrat official rather than a countersignatory in the banking sense. Locally printed and locally signed, this note never traveled far.