5 Franken Ghent - WW1 German Occupation Coinage

When the German military administration requisitioned Belgian copper and nickel early in the occupation, municipalities were left to improvise their own emergency money. Ghent's series of notgeld-style pieces were sanctioned locally but carried no guarantee from either the Belgian national authority or the occupying power — their acceptance was essentially a matter of civic trust in a city already stripped of its industrial metals.

The 1918 date places this piece in the occupation's final year, when confidence in any locally issued substitute coinage was collapsing alongside the German war effort itself.