5 Pfennig - Emmerich

Emmerich, a small Rhine crossing town in the western Rhineland, issued this iron notgeld piece in 1918 as the German military's wartime metal requisitions had stripped municipal cash reserves and made bronze coinage effectively unavailable. Iron was the compromise — cheap, workable, and deeply unpopular with the public who watched it rust in their pockets. By the armistice that November, most towns were already planning paper replacements.