10 Pfennig - Augsburg Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg

Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg — better known as MAN — issued these zinc notgeld tokens during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the early 1920s, when hyperinflation rendered official coinage effectively worthless almost as fast as it was struck. Large industrial employers routinely issued their own scrip to pay workers and facilitate canteen or company-store transactions, since Reichsbank coinage simply wasn't reaching factory floors in usable quantities. MAN was by then already one of Germany's most significant heavy engineering firms, producing diesel engines, trucks, and railway equipment.

Zinc was the only practical choice — aluminum and copper had long since been redirected or hoarded.