10 Pfennig - München Oskar Kiesel and Cº

Issued in 1918 by a Munich private firm, this is Kriegsgeld — emergency coinage produced when the German imperial government could no longer supply adequate small change as the war consumed metal reserves and disrupted centralized minting. Municipalities, transit authorities, and private businesses across Germany were authorized to fill the gap themselves. Oskar Kiesel & Co. was among hundreds of commercial issuers that stepped in, their tokens circulating locally as functional substitutes for state coinage in the final months before the armistice.

Nickel-plated zinc was the compromise material of the period — base enough to conserve strategic metals, substantial enough to pass at the counter.