Eisenach notgeld of this type was issued during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the early 1920s, when municipal authorities and private businesses alike were authorized — or simply took it upon themselves — to produce emergency coinage. August Wallmeyer was a local merchant or tradesman whose zinc pieces circulated as fractional currency within a highly restricted geographic radius, redeemable only at the issuing establishment.
Zinc was the material of necessity, not preference. By this period, copper and nickel were still being diverted from civilian coinage production.
Eisenach notgeld of this type was issued during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the early 1920s, when municipal authorities and private businesses alike were authorized — or simply took it upon themselves — to produce emergency coinage. August Wallmeyer was a local merchant or tradesman whose zinc pieces circulated as fractional currency within a highly restricted geographic radius, redeemable only at the issuing establishment.
Zinc was the material of necessity, not preference. By this period, copper and nickel were still being diverted from civilian coinage production.