Siegen's zinc notgeld emerged from the same municipal scramble that hit hundreds of German cities in 1917, when the wartime requisitioning of copper and nickel left local governments unable to obtain blanks from imperial mints. Zinc was the fallback — cheap, abundant, and deeply unpopular with the public, who correctly associated it with ersatz economics. The city issued what it could.
Siegen's zinc notgeld emerged from the same municipal scramble that hit hundreds of German cities in 1917, when the wartime requisitioning of copper and nickel left local governments unable to obtain blanks from imperial mints. Zinc was the fallback — cheap, abundant, and deeply unpopular with the public, who correctly associated it with ersatz economics. The city issued what it could.