Friedrichstrasse station was one of Berlin's busiest rail junctions, and small-denomination brass tokens like this one were issued by private concessionaires — refreshment stand and kiosk operators — to manage change during peak traffic when Reichsbank coin was in chronically short supply. H. Gigling almost certainly ran a platform-side operation there. These Bahnhof trade tokens circulated only within their issuer's premises and had no validity elsewhere, a legal distinction that kept them off the Reichsbank's radar during the notgeld-heavy years of the early 1920s.
Friedrichstrasse station was one of Berlin's busiest rail junctions, and small-denomination brass tokens like this one were issued by private concessionaires — refreshment stand and kiosk operators — to manage change during peak traffic when Reichsbank coin was in chronically short supply. H. Gigling almost certainly ran a platform-side operation there. These Bahnhof trade tokens circulated only within their issuer's premises and had no validity elsewhere, a legal distinction that kept them off the Reichsbank's radar during the notgeld-heavy years of the early 1920s.