10 Pfennig - Neumarkt Kunstmühle Carl Zinn

Notgeld issued by a private mill operation rather than a municipal authority — an unusual issuer even within the already irregular world of German emergency coinage. The Kunstmühle Carl Zinn in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz produced this zinc piece during the post-WWI shortages that made small-denomination coinage effectively disappear from circulation. Zinc was the material of necessity, already familiar from wartime Reichsmünzen, and local businesses across Bavaria filled the gap the central monetary system could not.