10 Pfennig - Neusalz a. Oder Gruschwitz Textilwerke Akt. Ges.

Issued in 1917 by the Gruschwitz textile works in Neusalz an der Oder — a Silesian mill town that would become Nowa Sól, Poland, after 1945 — this zinc notgeld token emerged from the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany as the war economy drained copper and nickel from civilian circulation. Private firms, municipalities, and transit companies were effectively deputized by necessity to mint their own fractional currency, and factory-issued pieces like this one served a dual function: they kept wages payable in small denominations and, by design, could only be spent within the company's own controlled retail ecosystem.