10 Pfennig - Düsseldorf Leonhard Tietz A.G.

Leonhard Tietz A.G. was one of the dominant department store chains in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany, operating large retail houses across the Rhineland. This zinc notgeld piece was almost certainly issued during the acute small-change shortage of the early 1920s, when municipal authorities, businesses, and private firms across Germany routinely produced their own emergency coinage to keep commerce moving. Tietz stores issued such pieces for internal use — likely as change tokens or canteen currency — rather than for general circulation, which partly explains their survival in reasonable condition.