5 Pfennigs - Charlottenburg Aron Ares

Charlottenburg existed as an independent city immediately west of Berlin until 1920, when it was absorbed into Greater Berlin under the Gesetz über die Bildung einer neuen Stadtgemeinde Berlin. Aron Ares was among the many small Jewish-owned commercial enterprises in the district issuing zinc notgeld tokens during the material shortages of the First World War, when copper and nickel were requisitioned for military production and small-denomination coinage effectively vanished from circulation. Zinc was the fallback — cheap, available, and deeply unpopular with the public who found it corrodes quickly in pocket moisture.