10 Pfennig - Schwandorf Bayerische Braunkohlen-Industrie A.G.

Issued by the Bavarian Brown Coal Industry company at Schwandorf during the acute metal shortages of the First World War, this zinc notgeld piece substituted for official coinage when the German state had diverted copper and nickel to munitions production. Private industrial firms — particularly large employers operating semi-isolated works communities — were among the first authorized to issue emergency tokens to pay and supply their own workforce. The Schwandorf lignite works, drawing on the brown coal deposits of the Upper Palatinate, was precisely that kind of captive industrial settlement.