5 Pfennig - Essen R.W. Dinnendahl

R.W. Dinnendahl was a major industrial machinery manufacturer based in Essen, operating at the heart of the Ruhr's coal and steel economy. This zinc notgeld piece was issued during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in 1917–1918, when wartime metal requisitions stripped copper and nickel from civilian circulation entirely. Large industrial firms in the Ruhr routinely issued their own emergency coinage to pay workers and facilitate transactions at company facilities — a practice the imperial government tolerated out of necessity rather than policy.