2 Mark

Hamburg's municipal mint struck this piece as an emergency issue (Kriegsgeld) in response to the metal shortages that struck Germany almost immediately after the outbreak of war in August 1914. Silver was pulled from circulation by a hoarding public, and the imperial government authorized provisional substitutes before more systematic wartime coinage could be organized. The aluminium-plated iron construction was a stopgap, and these pieces circulated hard in a city that was simultaneously losing its merchant shipping lanes to the British naval blockade.