10 Pfennig - Schwarzenbach an der Saale

Schwarzenbach an der Saale issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917, when the wartime metal requisitions that stripped Germany of its copper and nickel coinage had left municipalities scrambling to fill the gap in small-denomination circulation. Zinc was itself a strategic material — the German military consumed it in enormous quantities for galvanizing and alloy production — making even these humble emergency issues a product of genuine material compromise. The Funck reference numbers suggest at least two die varieties documented for this type, a common feature of locally produced notgeld where quality control was secondary to speed of production.