10 Pfennig - Lüneburg

Lüneburg's zinc 10 Pfennig belongs to the vast wave of German municipal notgeld produced when the imperial government requisitioned copper and nickel for the war effort in 1917, forcing cities and towns to issue their own emergency coinage. Lüneburg, a Hanseatic salt-trading city with centuries of civic minting tradition, was among hundreds of municipalities scrambling to fill the small-denomination void that year.

Zinc was the compromise metal — abundant, but prone to corrosion, which accounts for why survivors in clean condition are harder to locate than the mintage figures might suggest.