Fr. Lürssen's shipyard at Aumund-Vegesack, near Bremen, became one of Germany's most consequential naval builders — later responsible for the E-boat (Schnellboot) program of World War II. This iron pfennig token is a product of the wartime Kriegsgeld phenomenon, when private employers issued their own small-denomination pieces to compensate for the near-total disappearance of official coinage hoarded by a public that had already learned not to trust paper. Iron was the material of necessity, not choice.
Fr. Lürssen's shipyard at Aumund-Vegesack, near Bremen, became one of Germany's most consequential naval builders — later responsible for the E-boat (Schnellboot) program of World War II. This iron pfennig token is a product of the wartime Kriegsgeld phenomenon, when private employers issued their own small-denomination pieces to compensate for the near-total disappearance of official coinage hoarded by a public that had already learned not to trust paper. Iron was the material of necessity, not choice.