5 Pfennig - Tempelburg

Tempelburg — known today as Czaplinek, in northwestern Poland — issued iron notgeld during the severe metal shortages of World War I, when the German imperial government requisitioned copper and nickel for munitions. Municipal authorities across Pomerania were left to improvise their own small change, and iron became the default substitute despite its poor resistance to corrosion. Most surviving pieces from these emergency issues show significant rust damage precisely because the material was never suited to coinage.