10 Pfennig - Lüdinghausen Maschinenfabrik Pilgrim

Maschinenfabrik Pilgrim was a machinery manufacturer in Lüdinghausen, Westphalia, that issued this zinc token during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the early 1920s. Municipalities and private firms alike were forced to produce their own emergency currency — Notgeld — when the Reichsbank could not keep pace with inflation-driven coin hoarding and melting. Factory-issued pieces like this one were typically redeemable only at the company canteen or works store, functioning as a captive currency for the workforce.

Zinc was the material of necessity: copper and nickel had been diverted to war production years earlier and never fully returned to civilian coinage supply.