5 Pfennig - Offenbach Karl Ruland

Karl Ruland was a leather goods manufacturer in Offenbach am Main who issued this notgeld piece in 1917 as the Imperial German wartime metal shortage stripped zinc, copper, and nickel from civilian circulation entirely. Offenbach, long established as a center of leather and chemical industries, had dozens of local firms issuing their own emergency coinage that year. Ruland's issues are among the more obscure of the Offenbach private notgeld, catalogued under Menzel but thinly documented beyond the reference number.