Kommunalverband Bogen was a small Bavarian municipal district that issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917, when the imperial German government had systematically stripped copper and nickel from civilian circulation to feed wartime industrial demand. Zinc was the compromise material — cheap, available, and deeply unpopular with the public, who found it prone to corrosion and difficult to distinguish by touch. Most district-level issuers ceased production within a year or two as centralized emergency coinage took over.
Kommunalverband Bogen was a small Bavarian municipal district that issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917, when the imperial German government had systematically stripped copper and nickel from civilian circulation to feed wartime industrial demand. Zinc was the compromise material — cheap, available, and deeply unpopular with the public, who found it prone to corrosion and difficult to distinguish by touch. Most district-level issuers ceased production within a year or two as centralized emergency coinage took over.