5 Pfennig - Mönchengladbach Gebrüder Meer

Gebrüder Meer was a textile manufacturing firm in Mönchengladbach, a city whose economy was so thoroughly dominated by the weaving industry that local employers routinely issued their own small-denomination tokens during the Notgeld shortages of World War I. Zinc was the default material by that point — copper and nickel had been requisitioned for the war effort, and even zinc grew scarce enough by 1917 that some issuers switched to iron or pressed paper.