10 Pfennig - Bonn-Siegkreis

Issued jointly by the districts of Bonn and Sieg in 1918, this iron notgeld piece is a direct product of the wartime metal shortages that stripped Germany's subsidiary coinage from circulation. By mid-war, copper, nickel, and zinc had been commandeered for munitions production, forcing municipalities to fill the vacuum with locally authorized emergency issues. The Bonn-Siegkreis pieces were among hundreds of such district-level issues, each with its own authorization and distribution limits — rarely travelling far beyond the issuing region, which partly explains why survivors turn up in limited geographic spread today.