10 Pfennig - Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden's 1920 iron notgeld issue belongs to the wave of municipal emergency coinage that flooded German circulation after the First World War, when chronic metal shortages and Reichsbank paralysis left local authorities no choice but to mint their own. Iron was the material of necessity — copper and nickel had been consumed by the war effort, and what remained was tightly controlled. City-issued pieces like this one were never intended to outlast the crisis, which is precisely why attrition rates were high and uncirculated survivors are harder to find than their original mintages suggest.