20 Pfennig - Eitorf Schoeller'sche und Eitorfer Kammgarnspinnerei

Issued by the Schoeller'sche und Eitorfer Kammgarnspinnerei — a worsted yarn spinning mill in Eitorf on the Sieg — this is Notgeld in its most industrial form: a private employer minting its own emergency currency to pay workers when the Reichsbank could no longer guarantee coin supply during the final months of World War I. Zinc was the only practical option by 1918; copper and nickel had long been requisitioned for the war effort. These factory tokens circulated within a closed economy, accepted at the company store and redeemable against wages.