Kettwig, a small textile-mill town on the Ruhr, issued emergency coinage — Notgeld — during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in 1917–18, as wartime metal requisitions stripped zinc, copper, and nickel from everyday circulation. Municipal and commercial issuers filled the gap by the hundreds, producing locally valid substitutes of wildly varying quality. The nickel-plated zinc construction here reflects both the material constraints of the period and a deliberate attempt to mimic the appearance of pre-war coinage.
Kettwig, a small textile-mill town on the Ruhr, issued emergency coinage — Notgeld — during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in 1917–18, as wartime metal requisitions stripped zinc, copper, and nickel from everyday circulation. Municipal and commercial issuers filled the gap by the hundreds, producing locally valid substitutes of wildly varying quality. The nickel-plated zinc construction here reflects both the material constraints of the period and a deliberate attempt to mimic the appearance of pre-war coinage.