Wagner & Englert was a metalware manufacturer in Mettmann, a small industrial town in the Bergisches Land region of the Rhineland. This zinc notgeld piece was issued during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany between roughly 1916 and 1921, when private firms, municipalities, and utilities all began issuing their own emergency tokens to keep payrolls and canteens functioning. Zinc was the material of necessity — copper and nickel had been requisitioned for the war effort years earlier.
Company-issued notgeld of this type rarely circulated beyond the issuing firm's own workforce.
Wagner & Englert was a metalware manufacturer in Mettmann, a small industrial town in the Bergisches Land region of the Rhineland. This zinc notgeld piece was issued during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany between roughly 1916 and 1921, when private firms, municipalities, and utilities all began issuing their own emergency tokens to keep payrolls and canteens functioning. Zinc was the material of necessity — copper and nickel had been requisitioned for the war effort years earlier.
Company-issued notgeld of this type rarely circulated beyond the issuing firm's own workforce.