10 Pfennig - Sömmerda Dreyse and Collenbusch

Dreyse & Collenbusch was the Sömmerda armaments firm built on the reputation of Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse, inventor of the needle gun — the bolt-action rifle that gave Prussian infantry a decisive edge at Königgrätz in 1866. By the time this zinc notgeld token was issued, the company had long since pivoted toward peacetime manufacture, but the Dreyse name still carried considerable industrial weight in Thuringia. Zinc was the material of necessity; wartime and postwar metal shortages made anything else impractical for small-denomination emergency issues.