1 Pfennig - Barmen Textil-Industrie A.G.

Barmen, now absorbed into Wuppertal, was one of the Ruhr's densest concentrations of textile manufacturing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Factory token issues like this one emerged from a practical necessity: chronic shortages of small-denomination Reichscoinage in industrial districts meant workers often couldn't make change in company canteens or on-site shops. Nickel-plated zinc was the material of convenience — cheap, workable, and just distinct enough from official coinage to satisfy the authorities.

The Hasselmann corpus remains the primary reference for Rhineland industrial tokens, and this piece's dual citation suggests it survived in enough examples to be cross-catalogued.