5 Pfennig - Nürnberg Donau Tiegelwerk Akt. Ges.

Donau-Tiegelwerk AG was a Nuremberg-based crucible and refractory manufacturer — the kind of industrial firm that issued iron notgeld tokens during the acute small-change shortages of 1917–1921, when wartime metal requisitions stripped conventional coinage from circulation. Company-issued pfennig pieces like this one functioned as internal scrip, redeemable at factory canteens or company stores, and rarely traveled far beyond the works gate.

Iron was the default material for such issues precisely because it had been rejected for state coinage — too prone to rust, too cheap to hoard.