5 Pfennig - Bonn-Siegkreis

Bonn-Siegkreis issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1919 as the postwar German economy hemorrhaged small change — hoarding and metal shortages had driven virtually all pre-war copper and nickel coinage out of circulation. Hundreds of municipalities across the Rhineland resorted to their own emergency issues that year, each under different local authority, which is precisely why the catalog references for this type span multiple Funck and Menzel listings.

The Rhineland's occupation by Allied forces following the Armistice added a layer of administrative complexity to local currency issuance that the purely domestic notgeld zones never faced.