5 Pfennig - Welzheim

Welzheim's 1918 iron notgeld emerged from the same wartime metal shortage that stripped German municipalities of their copper and nickel coinage — by 1917, the Imperial government had requisitioned both metals for shell casings and industrial war production, leaving local authorities to improvise with whatever material remained available. Iron was the pragmatic substitute, though it corroded readily in circulation, which accounts for the difficulty in finding survivors without surface degradation.

The Amtskörperschaft — a district-level administrative body specific to Württemberg's governmental structure — had no standing authority to issue currency before the war made it unavoidable.