5 Pfennig - Kronach

Kronach issued this iron notgeld pfennig in 1917 as the wartime metal requisitions that had already consumed most of Germany's copper and nickel coinage left municipal authorities scrambling for substitutes. Iron was the stopgap of necessity, not preference — corrosion was an acknowledged problem from the start, which explains why surviving examples in any decent condition are harder to source than the original mintages might suggest.