Cassel's 1919 iron notgeld emerged from the same municipal scramble that gripped hundreds of German cities following the armistice — small change had effectively vanished, hoarded or melted, and central authorities were in no position to help. Iron was a pragmatic choice in Kassel, a city whose industrial base had spent four years producing war materiel and still had the stamping capacity to turn out coin-sized tokens at volume. The Funck reference places this among the earlier, better-documented Hessian municipal issues.
Cassel's 1919 iron notgeld emerged from the same municipal scramble that gripped hundreds of German cities following the armistice — small change had effectively vanished, hoarded or melted, and central authorities were in no position to help. Iron was a pragmatic choice in Kassel, a city whose industrial base had spent four years producing war materiel and still had the stamping capacity to turn out coin-sized tokens at volume. The Funck reference places this among the earlier, better-documented Hessian municipal issues.