German municipal and commercial notgeld exploded in the early 1920s as the Reichsbank's collapsing currency made small-denomination coinage functionally useless. Businesses like Leibold's Feinbäckerei — a fine bakery in Nuremberg — issued their own zinc tokens redeemable for goods in-house, bypassing the federal monetary system entirely. Hundreds of Nuremberg firms did the same, which is why Menzel's catalog runs to such extraordinary length for this city alone.
Zinc was the material of necessity, not choice. By this period it was one of the few metals available to private issuers at a cost that made token production economically rational.
German municipal and commercial notgeld exploded in the early 1920s as the Reichsbank's collapsing currency made small-denomination coinage functionally useless. Businesses like Leibold's Feinbäckerei — a fine bakery in Nuremberg — issued their own zinc tokens redeemable for goods in-house, bypassing the federal monetary system entirely. Hundreds of Nuremberg firms did the same, which is why Menzel's catalog runs to such extraordinary length for this city alone.
Zinc was the material of necessity, not choice. By this period it was one of the few metals available to private issuers at a cost that made token production economically rational.