10 Pfennig - Berlin-Wilmersdorf Elektr. Werk Südwest AG

Elektrisches Werk Südwest AG was one of several private electrical utilities operating in greater Berlin before municipal consolidation swept most of them into public hands. These zinc transport tokens — issued by the utility rather than any governmental authority — were used to pay streetcar or tram fares on lines the company operated, a common arrangement in early twentieth-century German cities where power companies often owned and ran the tram infrastructure they electrified. Zinc was the practical wartime and postwar substitute when copper and nickel disappeared into military procurement.