10 Pfennig - Torgau

Torgau issued this notgeld piece in 1917 as the German war economy stripped copper and nickel from circulation for munitions production, forcing municipalities across the Reich to produce their own emergency coinage in whatever base metals remained available. Zinc was the reluctant compromise. The city sits on the Elbe roughly halfway between Leipzig and Berlin, historically more famous as the site where American and Soviet forces linked up on 25 April 1945 than for its numismatic output.

The Funck 543.2 designation distinguishes this from at least one other Torgau zinc variety of the same denomination and year.