5 Pfennig - Nürnberg Vereinigte Margarine Werke

Issued in 1918 by a Nuremberg margarine manufacturer, this is wartime Notgeld in its most industrial form — a private company minting its own small change because the Imperial German government had effectively lost control of the copper and nickel supply. Metal coinage below 10 Pfennig had nearly vanished from circulation by mid-war, hoarded or melted, and factories with large workforces found themselves unable to make change at canteen windows. Zinc was the compromise material: abundant, cheap, and utterly graceless.