5 Pfennig - Halberstädter Flugzeugwerke

Halberstädter Flugzeugwerke issued this piece in 1918 as factory notgeld — emergency wage token currency produced when the German government could no longer guarantee adequate coin supply to industry. The Halberstadt firm was, at that moment, manufacturing fighter aircraft for the Imperial German Air Service, including the Halberstadt CL.II ground-attack type then in active service on the Western Front. The irony of a warplane manufacturer resorting to iron scrip in the war's final year is not subtle.