1 Pfennig - Rostock Gustav Zeeck

Gustav Zeeck was a Rostock merchant who issued this iron notgeld pfennig during the acute small-change shortages of World War I, when the hoarding of copper and zinc coins left German retail commerce nearly paralyzed. Municipal and private emergency issues like this one filled the gap at the most granular level of daily transactions — bread, tram fares, small provisions.

Iron was the compromise material: abundant, workable, but prone to corrosion, which accounts for the high attrition rate among surviving examples.