Saarbrücken's Chamber of Commerce began issuing Kleingeldscheine in 1916 as small-denomination metal coinage disappeared almost entirely from German circulation — hoarded by the public and consumed by wartime industry simultaneously. This 50 Pfennig piece is a local emergency response to that shortage, authorised under the municipal and commercial notgeld provisions that proliferated across the Reich from 1914 onward.
G. H. Schaur of Völklingen was a regional printer, not a security printing house, which makes the presence of a watermark noteworthy — more precaution than most comparable Handelskammer issues bothered with at this denomination.
Saarbrücken's Chamber of Commerce began issuing Kleingeldscheine in 1916 as small-denomination metal coinage disappeared almost entirely from German circulation — hoarded by the public and consumed by wartime industry simultaneously. This 50 Pfennig piece is a local emergency response to that shortage, authorised under the municipal and commercial notgeld provisions that proliferated across the Reich from 1914 onward.
G. H. Schaur of Völklingen was a regional printer, not a security printing house, which makes the presence of a watermark noteworthy — more precaution than most comparable Handelskammer issues bothered with at this denomination.