10 Pfennig - Hilpoltstein Aug. Hoffmann Gemischtes Warengeschäft

A privately issued zinc notgeld token from Hilpoltstein, a small Bavarian market town roughly 30 kilometers south of Nuremberg. August Hoffmann's "Gemischtes Warengeschäft" — a general merchandise shop — issued this piece almost certainly during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the closing years of World War I, when zinc and iron coinage had largely displaced copper and nickel, and even those coins vanished from circulation as hoarding accelerated. Thousands of German retailers resorted to privately struck tokens to make change; most circulated only within the issuing establishment.