20 Pfennig EDEKA

EDEKA — the Einkaufsgenossenschaft der Kolonialwarenhändler — began issuing its own small-denomination paper scrip during the severe coin shortages of the early 1920s, when German hyperinflation had made Reichsbank coinage effectively vanish from circulation. Retailers across the country issued Notgeld as a practical substitute, and EDEKA's cooperative structure made it straightforward to distribute such tokens across its member stores. The 20 Pfennig denomination targeted the smallest everyday transactions — the kind of purchases where no merchant could afford to turn a customer away for lack of change.

The cooperative was founded in Hamburg in 1907 and had relocated its central purchasing office to Berlin by the time these notes were circulating.