Gotha issued zinc notgeld during the acute coin famines of World War I, when the imperial government's requisitioning of copper and nickel stripped municipal circulation bare. Cities across Germany filled the gap with their own emergency pieces, and Gotha's zinc 10 Pfennig falls squarely in that wave of municipal stopgap coinage from around 1917–1918. Zinc was the last resort — brittle, prone to corrosion, and deeply unpopular with the public.
The Funck 166.2 designation places this within a catalogued die variety, suggesting at least one other obverse or reverse pairing exists for this type.
Gotha issued zinc notgeld during the acute coin famines of World War I, when the imperial government's requisitioning of copper and nickel stripped municipal circulation bare. Cities across Germany filled the gap with their own emergency pieces, and Gotha's zinc 10 Pfennig falls squarely in that wave of municipal stopgap coinage from around 1917–1918. Zinc was the last resort — brittle, prone to corrosion, and deeply unpopular with the public.
The Funck 166.2 designation places this within a catalogued die variety, suggesting at least one other obverse or reverse pairing exists for this type.