10 Pfennig - Oberzwieselau Benedikt v. Poschinger

Issued by the Poschinger glassmaking dynasty at their Oberzwieselau works in Bavaria, this is wartime Notgeld in its most industrial form. The German zinc shortage of 1917 was severe enough that the Reichsbank actively encouraged private firms to issue their own small-denomination tokens to relieve the disappearance of imperial coinage from circulation — copper and nickel had been redirected to munitions production since 1915. That a glass manufacturer was striking zinc coins says everything about how thoroughly the war had disrupted normal monetary infrastructure.