10 Pfennig - Frauendorf Zementwerke

Frauendorf Zementwerke issued this zinc notgeld token during the acute coin shortages of World War I, when the German imperial government requisitioned copper and nickel for munitions production, leaving industrial employers scrambling to pay workers in fractional denominations. Cement works were among the earliest private issuers — their isolated plant communities, often distant from town banking infrastructure, made in-house token systems a practical necessity rather than a novelty.

Zinc was the compromise material of the era: abundant, workable, but prone to corrosion, which accounts for the degraded surfaces seen on most surviving examples.