10 Stotinki - Ferdinand I

Bulgaria's zinc coinage of 1917 was a direct consequence of wartime metal requisitioning — copper and nickel had been absorbed into the military supply chain, leaving zinc as the only practical substitute for small denomination production. The country was then deep in its second year of involvement in World War I alongside the Central Powers, and the domestic economy was under severe strain.

Zinc proved badly suited to circulation: it corrodes readily in handling, and surviving examples with intact surfaces are considerably less common than raw survival numbers suggest.