2 Pfennig - Eisenach August Wallmeyer

Issued by August Wallmeyer, a private merchant or tradesman in Eisenach, this piece belongs to the enormous wave of privately-issued German notgeld that flooded local economies in 1918 as the imperial government's metal coinage disappeared from circulation. Zinc was the practical choice by this point — copper and nickel had been requisitioned for the war effort years earlier. Thousands of German businesses, municipalities, and institutions issued their own emergency tokens during this period, most redeemable only at the issuing establishment.