25 Pfennig - Münster in Westfalen

Issued in 1918 by the city of Münster as the wartime metal requisitions stripped Germany's coinage supply to near collapse, this iron notgeld piece filled the vacuum left by the disappearance of nickel and copper from circulation. By the armistice that November, hundreds of German municipalities had independently issued their own emergency coinage — a fragmentation of the monetary system that the Imperial government tacitly accepted rather than solve.

Iron was a poor substitute: prone to rust, difficult to strike cleanly, and unpopular with the public. Survivors in genuinely uncorroded condition are the exception.