25 Pfennig - Burgsteinfurt

Burgsteinfurt issued this iron notgeld piece in 1917, the same year Germany's wartime metal shortages reached their most acute phase. Copper, nickel, and zinc had been systematically requisitioned for munitions production since 1915, forcing hundreds of municipalities to strike emergency coinage in iron — a material the military had less immediate use for. The Funck catalogue documents numerous Westphalian civic issues from this precise window, most struck in very limited quantities and rarely surviving in uncirculated condition given iron's susceptibility to oxidation.