20 Pfennig - Kulmbach Spinnerei

Kulmbacher Spinnerei AG issued this zinc notgeld piece during the acute small-change shortage that paralyzed German commerce in the early 1920s, when hyperinflation made official coinage vanish from circulation almost overnight. Textile firms, mines, and factories across Bavaria routinely issued their own emergency currency redeemable only at company premises — part wage token, part captive spending mechanism.

The zinc composition dates it almost certainly to the 1921–1923 window, when base metals were the only economically viable option for private issuers. Kulmbach's spinning industry was already well-established by this period, and the firm's scrip would have circulated primarily among mill workers in the upper Franconia region.