10 Pfennig - Züllichau

Züllichau — today Sulechów in western Poland — issued this piece in 1918 as municipal emergency money, or Notgeld, when the demands of the German war economy had stripped copper and nickel from civilian coinage almost entirely. The Sparkasse, a savings institution rather than a municipal authority, was among thousands of local bodies across Germany and Austria that filled the vacuum left by the Imperial treasury's inability to supply small change.

Zinc was the compromise material of the period — cheap, available, and deeply unpopular with the public for its tendency to corrode and discolor in circulation.