10 Pfennig - Lauingen

Lauingen issued this iron notgeld piece in 1918 as the German war economy had stripped conventional coinage metals entirely from circulation — nickel, copper, and zinc were all diverted to munitions production, leaving municipalities to devise their own emergency fractional currency. The city, a small Bavarian market town on the Danube best known as the birthplace of Albertus Magnus, was among hundreds of German localities forced into this ad hoc monetary role by central government failure to supply adequate small change.

Iron was the least favored notgeld material, prone to corrosion and poorly received by the public. Uncorroded survivors are the exception rather than the rule.