5 Pfennig - Münchberg

Münchberg is a small textile-manufacturing town in Upper Franconia, and this zinc notgeld piece is a product of the acute small-change famine that gripped Germany from 1917 onward as wartime metal requisitions stripped copper and nickel from circulation entirely. Municipal authorities across Bavaria issued their own emergency coinage under loose central authorization, with local councils often contracting directly with regional die-cutters. Zinc was the fallback material — cheap, available, but prone to corrosion, which accounts for the high rate of heavily pitted survivors from this type.