2 Pfennigs - Hamburg Rudolf Neugebauer and Co

Rudolf Neugebauer & Co. was a Hamburg-based firm that issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1918, when the wartime metal shortage had stripped conventional coinage from everyday commerce almost entirely. Germany's military requisitioning of copper and nickel forced municipalities and private firms alike to produce their own emergency currency, and Hamburg's merchant and industrial sector was particularly active in doing so. Zinc was one of the few base metals still available in sufficient quantity, though it presented real striking difficulties and tends to corrode aggressively in circulated examples.