5 Pfennig - Nürnberg G.C. Prückner Hoflieferant

Prückner's delicatessen operated as a court-purveyor supplier in Nuremberg, and like many German retailers during the First World War and its aftermath, issued private zinc tokens to compensate for the near-total disappearance of small-denomination coinage from circulation. The Imperial government's wartime metal requisitions stripped copper and nickel from everyday commerce almost entirely, leaving merchants to fund their own emergency small change.

Zinc was the material of necessity, not choice — prone to corrosion and poorly suited to long circulation life, which explains why surviving examples in problem-free condition are harder to locate than the Menzel census numbers might suggest.