5 Pfennig - Lehesten

Lehesten, a small Thuringian slate-quarrying town, issued notgeld coinage during the acute metal shortages of World War I, when the imperial government progressively requisitioned copper and nickel for munitions. Iron was the fallback for dozens of small municipal and corporate issuers across Germany, and Lehesten was among them — though its output was modest enough that surviving examples see genuine collector demand today.