10 Mark - Thale am Harz

Thale's 1921 notgeld issue belongs to the short-lived wave of enamelled iron emergency coinage produced by German municipalities during the currency chaos following World War I. The enamelling process — applied to iron blanks rather than the more typical zinc or aluminum — was chosen by a handful of issuers for durability and visual distinction, though it made production considerably more expensive than the crisis supposedly warranted. Thale itself, a small industrial town at the edge of the Harz Mountains, had ironworking infrastructure that made the choice of ferrous blanks locally logical.