20 Pfennig - Zwiesel

Zwiesel issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917 as wartime metal requisitions stripped German municipalities of their copper and nickel coin supplies. The city sits in the Bavarian Forest near the Bohemian border, and its glassmaking industry — dominant there since the 15th century — gave local authorities enough economic standing to back small emergency issues of this kind. By 1917, zinc was itself becoming scarce, which partly explains why so many of these municipal pieces were struck thin and light relative to their nominal value.