5 Pfennig - Schmölln

Schmölln, a small Saxon town best known for its button manufacturing industry, issued this zinc notgeld piece during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in 1920. The postwar coin metal crisis left municipal governments across Thuringia and Saxony scrambling to fill the gap left by hoarded Imperial coinage, and hundreds of city councils issued their own emergency pieces with whatever base metals were available.

Zinc was the material of necessity — copper and nickel had been consumed by the war effort and remained in short supply. Most of these municipal zinc issues circulated hard and corroded faster than intended.