10 Pfennig - Barmen

Barmen issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917 as the Imperial German war economy stripped copper and nickel from civilian coinage production almost entirely. The city — an industrial textile hub in the Wupper valley — was among hundreds of municipalities forced to commission their own emergency currency when the Reichsbank could no longer supply adequate small change. Zinc was the compromise material: abundant, cheap, and deeply unpopular with the public, who found it corroded quickly in circulation.

Barmen itself ceased to exist as an independent city in 1929, absorbed into the newly created Wuppertal.