5 Pfennig - Mettmann Wagner and Englert G.M.B.H.

Wagner & Englert G.m.b.H. was a leather goods manufacturer in Mettmann, and like hundreds of German industrial firms during the notgeld crisis of 1917–1921, it issued its own emergency coinage to pay workers when the Reichsbank could not supply sufficient small-denomination coins. Zinc was the only practical option — copper and nickel had been commandeered for the war effort years earlier.

Factory-issued notgeld in metal is considerably scarcer than the paper equivalents, most of which were printed in vast quantities for collectors rather than circulation.