Wolfach's 1919 zinc notgeld issue belongs to the chaotic first wave of municipal emergency coinage that flooded Baden and the rest of Germany in the months following the armistice. With the imperial monetary system in collapse and the new Weimar government unable to guarantee adequate small-change supply to rural districts, local administrations like the Amtsbezirk Wolfach were left to contract their own coinage — zinc being the only practical metal available after four years of wartime requisitioning had stripped civilian industry of copper and nickel stocks.
Wolfach's 1919 zinc notgeld issue belongs to the chaotic first wave of municipal emergency coinage that flooded Baden and the rest of Germany in the months following the armistice. With the imperial monetary system in collapse and the new Weimar government unable to guarantee adequate small-change supply to rural districts, local administrations like the Amtsbezirk Wolfach were left to contract their own coinage — zinc being the only practical metal available after four years of wartime requisitioning had stripped civilian industry of copper and nickel stocks.