10 Pfennigs - Hildesheim Senkingwerk A.G.

Senkingwerk A.G. was a major enamelware and metalware manufacturer in Hildesheim that, like hundreds of German industrial firms, issued its own notgeld coinage during the metal shortages of World War I. These factory tokens circulated as internal currency — redeemable at the company canteen or store — filling the gap left when the Reich's small-denomination coinage vanished into hoarding and melting. Iron was the prescribed substitute material precisely because it had no strategic value to hoarders.