10 Pfennig - Weinheim Maschinenfabrik Badenia

Maschinenfabrik Badenia was an agricultural machinery manufacturer in Weinheim, Baden, and this zinc token was issued as factory scrip — a private substitute currency used to pay workers in denominations redeemable only at company-controlled facilities. Such tokens proliferated across German industry during and after World War I, when the Imperial government's requisition of copper and nickel for war production created a near-total collapse of small-denomination coinage in circulation. Zinc was the approved substitute material, which is why the composition here is diagnostic of that shortage period rather than a corporate preference.