50 Pfennigs

Bezirksamt Laufen was a small administrative district in Upper Bavaria, hard against the Salzach River and the Austrian border. This 50 Pfennig note belongs to the vast wave of German notgeld issued from 1919 onward as small-denomination coinage essentially vanished from circulation — hoarded, melted, or simply absent in the economic chaos following the First World War. Thousands of German municipalities, districts, and local authorities printed their own emergency issues during this period, which makes most common notgeld unremarkable as a type. What distinguishes pieces like this one is the printer.

A. Pustet of Tittmoning was primarily a Catholic publishing house, part of the Friedrich Pustet firm with deep roots in ecclesiastical printing. Finding them contracted for municipal scrip is an index of how improvised these local currency arrangements were.