5 Pfennig - Bodenmais Rödlische Holzwarenfabr.

Bodenmais, a small Bavarian mining and glassworking town in the Bavarian Forest, saw its local economy strained like much of Germany during the First World War as metal coinage vanished from circulation, hoarded or requisitioned for the war effort. The Rödlische Holzwarenfabrik — a woodware manufacturer — issued this zinc token in 1917 as Notgeld, a private stopgap to keep small transactions moving among its workers and local trade. Zinc was itself a war compromise; copper and nickel had long since been redirected to munitions production by that point.