Starting around World War I something strange began to occur in Germany....
small coinage ( and later all coinage ) disappeared. At first it was thought that
the Skat players were hoarding all the coins, but more likely it was due to the
rise in silver prices. Anyway as the money flew out of the economy,
some form small denominations was required, and so cities and towns
through - out Germany ( and other countries ) started issuing their own
small change notes. These notes became the collector's dream
and at some point was issued almost exclusively for these collectors.

It was not until H. Horace Greeley Schacht, put an end to all
this madness in 1923, as Commissioner of National Currency.

Here we offer a lovely 50 pfennig notgeld note on cream colored paper dated
1 January 1918 from the seaport City of Kiel. A city of northern Germany on
Kiel Bay ( an artificial waterway, 98 kilometers long, connecting the
North Sea with the Baltic Sea, built in1887-1895 to facilitate movement
of the German fleet, it was widened and deepened from 1905 to 1914 ).
Chartered in 1242, Kiel joined the Hanseatic League in 1284, passed to
Denmark in 1773, and was annexed by Prussia in 1866.
German sailors mutinied here in 1918 ( same year as this notgeld note ),
setting off a socialist revolution.