1 Pfennig - Eisenach Fahrzeugfabrik

Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach — better known today as the origin of the Wartburg automobile — began as a bicycle and later carriage manufacturer before pivoting to cars in 1898. During labor-intensive production periods, large industrial firms in imperial Germany routinely issued their own small-denomination iron tokens to facilitate canteen purchases and minor internal transactions, bypassing the chronic shortage of low-value state coinage. This piece belongs to that tradition.

Iron was the material of practical necessity here, not economy — copper was too valuable to commit to plant scrip.