5 Pfennig - Arnsberg

Arnsberg's 1917 zinc notgeld issue was a direct product of the wartime metal requisitions that had stripped German municipal circulation of copper and nickel coinage by mid-conflict. Cities across the German Empire were authorized to produce their own emergency pfennig pieces, and Arnsberg — a small Westphalian administrative center on the Ruhr — was among hundreds that contracted with private mints to fill the gap. The Funck reference cataloguing this piece documents dozens of municipal variants from this single year alone, most differing only in minor die details.