10 Pfennig - Arnsberg

Arnsberg's 1918 iron notgeld issue was a direct consequence of Germany's wartime metal requisitioning program, which had stripped copper and nickel from circulation to feed munitions production. Municipal authorities across the Reich were left with no practical alternative but to issue their own emergency coinage in whatever base material remained available. Iron was cheap, abundant, and deeply unpopular with the public — it rusted in pockets and purses, which is precisely why so many surviving examples show surface corrosion regardless of handling history.