5 Pfennig - Kulmbach Spinnerei

Kulmbacher Spinnerei AG issued this iron notgeld piece in 1917 as Germany's wartime metal requisitions stripped copper and nickel from everyday circulation. Textile and industrial firms across Bavaria began striking their own low-denomination tokens not out of civic generosity but operational necessity — workers needed change for canteen purchases and small factory transactions, and the Reichsbank simply could not supply it. Iron was the only non-strategic metal available in quantity by mid-war.

The Menzel reference numbers indicate this is the sixth catalogued die variety within the type — suggesting the firm returned to the press more than once as demand persisted into the war's later years.