20 Pfennig - Schwarzburg-Sondershausen

Schwarzburg-Sondershausen was among the smallest of the German princely states — population under 90,000 at its peak — yet it issued its own notgeld coinage in iron as the Kaiserreich collapsed around it. This piece dates to the final months of World War I, when copper and nickel had long been commandeered for war production and iron was the only practical substitute for everyday small change. The principality itself ceased to exist within weeks of this coin's issue, abolished when Prince Karl Günther abdicated on November 25, 1918, during the German Revolution.