10 Pfennig - Blankenstein

Blankenstein was a small town in the Principality of Reuss, and this iron piece belongs to the vast wave of German municipal notgeld issued during the acute metal shortages of World War I. Iron was pressed into service precisely because copper, nickel, and zinc had been commandeered for the war effort. Most of these municipal issues circulated only within their issuing town and were redeemed — or simply abandoned — once the emergency passed.

The Funck reference places this among the catalogued Kleingeldersatz issues, a category that occupied German collectors almost immediately after the war ended.