10 Pfennig

Neukalen is a small town in Mecklenburg, and like hundreds of similar municipalities, it issued its own emergency paper money — Notgeld — during the currency chaos that followed World War One. The Rat der Stadt, the town council, acted as the issuing authority in the absence of any viable national alternative. These hyperlocal issues were produced in enormous variety between roughly 1917 and 1922, with printers ranging from major Leipzig firms to local jobbing presses whose quality varied wildly.

Notgeld of this scale was frequently saved rather than spent — collectors drove a secondary market that some municipalities exploited deliberately, printing attractive series knowing they'd never return for redemption.