5 Pfennig - Augsburg Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg

MAN issued zinc notgeld tokens during the early 1920s to address the chronic small-change shortage that paralyzed German industry — workers couldn't make purchases in factory canteens or at company stores when the Reichsbank simply couldn't produce enough low-denomination coinage to keep pace with inflation. MAN's Augsburg and Nürnberg plants both circulated their own scrip, creating localized parallel economies entirely within the factory gates.

Zinc was the practical choice: copper and nickel had been commandeered for the war effort years earlier and remained scarce.