2 Pfennig - Hirschberg Maschinenbau AG. vorm. Starke and Hoffmann

Starke & Hoffmann was a Silesian machinery manufacturer operating out of Hirschberg (now Jelenia Góra, Poland), and like many industrial firms during the acute small-change shortages of the First World War era, it issued its own token coinage for wage and canteen transactions. These privately circulated pieces kept factory economies moving when official Pfennig coinage disappeared into hoarding. Zinc was the material of necessity — copper and nickel were requisitioned for the war effort by 1916.