10 Pfennig - Meuselwitz Otto Zänglein, Tiefbau Unternehmung S.A.

Meuselwitz sat at the heart of the central German lignite belt, and private firms operating there routinely issued their own small-denomination tokens to manage wages and canteen transactions when Reichsbank coinage was tight or simply inconvenient. Otto Zänglein's civil engineering outfit — specializing in underground construction work for the mining sector — was typical of the contractors who circulated such pieces among their own workforce. Zinc was the material of necessity here, requisitioned for armaments during the war years and then repurposed for token coinage once industrial demand eased.