5 Pfennig - Soest

Soest issued notgeld in 1920 as part of the broader municipal small-change crisis that swept Germany following the First World War, when hoarding and metal shortages left ordinary commerce nearly paralyzed for lack of coins. The city, an old Hanseatic trading center in Westphalia, was among hundreds of municipalities forced to authorize their own emergency issues simply to keep local markets functioning.

Aluminium was the default material for many of these issues — cheap, available, and easy to strike in modest civic facilities. The Funck reference places this squarely in the documented mainstream of Westphalian municipal notgeld.