Alfeld an der Leine is a small Lower Saxon town, and C. Behrens was almost certainly a local merchant or tradesman who issued this piece as emergency token coinage — Notgeld — during the acute small-change shortages that plagued Germany in the early 1920s. Brass-plated zinc was a characteristically expedient choice for private issuers working outside the state minting infrastructure, where material procurement was improvised rather than standardized.
The Menzel reference numbers suggest two catalogued varieties of this type, distinguished likely by die detail or planchet specification.
Alfeld an der Leine is a small Lower Saxon town, and C. Behrens was almost certainly a local merchant or tradesman who issued this piece as emergency token coinage — Notgeld — during the acute small-change shortages that plagued Germany in the early 1920s. Brass-plated zinc was a characteristically expedient choice for private issuers working outside the state minting infrastructure, where material procurement was improvised rather than standardized.
The Menzel reference numbers suggest two catalogued varieties of this type, distinguished likely by die detail or planchet specification.