10 Pfennig - Elberfeld

Elberfeld issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917 as the Imperial German war economy stripped copper and nickel from civilian coinage entirely. The city — now absorbed into Wuppertal since the 1929 municipal merger — was an industrial center in the Wupper valley, and its local scrip circulated out of necessity rather than civic pride. Zinc was the compromise metal of the home front: abundant, cheap, and universally despised by the public for its tendency to corrode rapidly in pocket conditions.