50 Pfennig - Annweiler

Annweiler issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1919 as the postwar economic collapse made imperial coinage disappear from circulation almost overnight — hoarded, melted, or simply absent from the Reichsbank's distribution. The town sits at the foot of Trifels Castle, where Richard I of England was held captive in 1193, a piece of local history the city administration was not shy about exploiting on its emergency coinage. Zinc was the only practical metal available to municipal issuers by this point; copper and nickel had been consumed by four years of war production.