10 Pfennig - Olpe

Olpe's 1920 notgeld issue was a direct consequence of the postwar coin shortage that plagued German municipal administrations as the Reichsbank struggled to maintain adequate small denomination supply. Cities across Westphalia took matters into their own hands, and Olpe was among hundreds of smaller municipalities issuing zinc emergency coinage that year — zinc being the only base metal still accessible in quantity after wartime industrial consumption had exhausted copper and nickel stocks.