50 Pfennige

Nöschenrode was a small village community that issued its own emergency currency during the notgeld period — something thousands of German municipalities did between roughly 1919 and 1922 to compensate for the chronic shortage of small-denomination coins. What distinguishes this particular piece is the designer credit: Maria Alde is a named individual, which is relatively uncommon in notgeld documentation, where artistic attribution is usually absent or buried. Local printers like Schaffhäuser & Claus handled enormous volumes of these commissions from surrounding communities in the Harz region.

The watermark is an unusual security feature at this denomination and format — most cardstock notgeld relied purely on overprinting or serial numbering.