Issued by the Kripper Lederfabrik G.m.b.H. — a leather goods manufacturer in Kripp am Rhein — this is Notgeld, the emergency token currency that proliferated across Germany and Austria following the severe coin shortages of World War I and its immediate aftermath. Private firms, municipalities, and cooperatives all issued their own small-denomination pieces when the state could no longer supply adequate change. Zinc was the material of necessity; copper and nickel had been requisitioned for the war effort years earlier, and supplies remained disrupted long into the 1920s.
Issued by the Kripper Lederfabrik G.m.b.H. — a leather goods manufacturer in Kripp am Rhein — this is Notgeld, the emergency token currency that proliferated across Germany and Austria following the severe coin shortages of World War I and its immediate aftermath. Private firms, municipalities, and cooperatives all issued their own small-denomination pieces when the state could no longer supply adequate change. Zinc was the material of necessity; copper and nickel had been requisitioned for the war effort years earlier, and supplies remained disrupted long into the 1920s.