1 Pfennig - Wilhelm II type 2 - small shield - Pattern

By 1914, the German monetary administration was already exploring nickel as a replacement for the copper pfennig coinage, anticipating the material shortages that the coming war would make catastrophic. This piece is a pattern — never adopted — representing one branch of that preparatory work. Copper pfennig production continued into the war years before aluminum and zinc eventually took over. The nickel small-shield type went nowhere, leaving pattern survivors as the only physical evidence that the denomination was seriously reconsidered in the final months before August 1914.