10 Pfennig - Pirmasens

Pirmasens issued this notgeld piece in 1919 as the postwar currency crisis left Germany's municipalities scrambling to fill a void left by hoarded or melted imperial coinage. The city was — and remains — the center of Germany's shoe manufacturing industry, a fact that shaped its local economy and workforce through the upheaval of 1918–19 more than most comparable Palatine towns.

Iron was the default emergency metal by this point, copper having been aggressively requisitioned for the war effort years earlier.