10 Pfennig - Thale am Harz

Thale's 1918 iron notgeld emerged from the same wartime metal shortage that stripped Germany's municipal authorities of any realistic supply of copper or zinc. By mid-1918, the Imperial government had requisitioned non-ferrous metals so aggressively that dozens of small municipalities across the Harz region turned to stamped iron as the only viable substitute for small-change coinage. Iron corrodes readily in circulation, which is why uncorroded survivors of this particular issue are harder to locate than the Funck catalog numbers might suggest.