Dortmund's zinc 10 Pfennig belongs to the vast wave of Kriegsgeld — emergency municipal coinage — authorized after the Imperial government began requisitioning copper and nickel for war production in 1916. Over 600 German cities and municipalities issued their own notgeld coinage during this period, flooding local economies with a patchwork of incompatible small change that the Reichsbank quietly tolerated rather than sanctioned.
Zinc was a compromise material, prone to oxidizing and structurally weaker than the alloys it replaced. Many surviving examples from Dortmund and similar issuers show edge cracking characteristic of zinc's brittleness under die pressure.
Dortmund's zinc 10 Pfennig belongs to the vast wave of Kriegsgeld — emergency municipal coinage — authorized after the Imperial government began requisitioning copper and nickel for war production in 1916. Over 600 German cities and municipalities issued their own notgeld coinage during this period, flooding local economies with a patchwork of incompatible small change that the Reichsbank quietly tolerated rather than sanctioned.
Zinc was a compromise material, prone to oxidizing and structurally weaker than the alloys it replaced. Many surviving examples from Dortmund and similar issuers show edge cracking characteristic of zinc's brittleness under die pressure.