R. Oldenbourg was a Munich-based printing and publishing house, founded in 1858, that issued notgeld during the acute coin shortages of World War I. Private firms, transit companies, and municipalities across Germany produced their own emergency small-denomination tokens when the imperial government's zinc and iron coinage failed to circulate in sufficient quantities — hoarded or melted almost as fast as it was struck.
The Menzel reference numbers suggest this piece is catalogued in both the 2005 and 2018 editions under slightly differing entries, which occasionally indicates a revised attribution or a recognized die variant between publications.
R. Oldenbourg was a Munich-based printing and publishing house, founded in 1858, that issued notgeld during the acute coin shortages of World War I. Private firms, transit companies, and municipalities across Germany produced their own emergency small-denomination tokens when the imperial government's zinc and iron coinage failed to circulate in sufficient quantities — hoarded or melted almost as fast as it was struck.
The Menzel reference numbers suggest this piece is catalogued in both the 2005 and 2018 editions under slightly differing entries, which occasionally indicates a revised attribution or a recognized die variant between publications.