10 Pfennig - Wunsiedel

Wunsiedel issued this zinc piece in 1917 under the emergency coinage (Notgeld) provisions that allowed German municipalities to mint their own small-denomination tokens as the Imperial government's metal requisitions stripped copper and nickel from the civilian supply. By that point in the war, zinc had itself become increasingly strategic, making even these stopgap issues a negotiated resource. Wunsiedel, a small Franconian town better known as the birthplace of the playwright Jean Paul, was among hundreds of minor municipalities forced into the currency business by Berlin's inability to keep change circulating.