5 Pfennigs - Schlierbach Wächtersbacher Steingutfabrik G.m.b.H

Wächtersbacher Steingutfabrik, the ceramics manufacturer operating out of Schlierbach in Hesse, issued zinc notgeld tokens during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the early 1920s. With the Reichsbank unable to keep low-denomination coinage in circulation — inflation eroding purchasing power faster than metal could be minted — industrial employers took it upon themselves to pay workers in factory-issued scrip redeemable on-site. Zinc was the material of necessity: copper and nickel had been stripped from the civilian economy years earlier by wartime requisition.