5 Pfennig - Braunschweig Herzogtum

Brunswick issued these iron emergency coins in 1918 as the German war economy had stripped copper and nickel from civilian coinage for years. By the final months of the war, dozens of German states and municipalities were producing their own Notgeld in whatever base metals remained available, iron being the most readily accessible. Brunswick's participation was unremarkable in scale but notable as one of the last numismatic acts of a duchy that would cease to exist entirely within months — the abdication of Ernst August in November 1918 ended over three centuries of Welf rule in the territory.