Bodenmais, a small mining town in the Bavarian Forest, was one of hundreds of German localities that issued privately authorized notgeld coinage during the acute metal and currency shortages of World War I. Georg Sagerer was almost certainly a local merchant or innkeeper — the type of small business operator who applied to municipal or state authorities for permission to issue zinc pieces as fractional change when official coinage disappeared from circulation almost entirely after 1916.
The Hasselmann catalog remains the primary reference for Bavarian private zinc issues of this period, and the dual citation with Men18 confirms this piece has been documented across both major notgeld reference systems.
Bodenmais, a small mining town in the Bavarian Forest, was one of hundreds of German localities that issued privately authorized notgeld coinage during the acute metal and currency shortages of World War I. Georg Sagerer was almost certainly a local merchant or innkeeper — the type of small business operator who applied to municipal or state authorities for permission to issue zinc pieces as fractional change when official coinage disappeared from circulation almost entirely after 1916.
The Hasselmann catalog remains the primary reference for Bavarian private zinc issues of this period, and the dual citation with Men18 confirms this piece has been documented across both major notgeld reference systems.