The Braunschweig Staatsbank issued this iron Pfennig notgeld during the acute small-change famine that gripped Germany in 1921, when chronic metal shortages and runaway inflation had driven virtually all pre-war coinage from circulation. Iron was an unsatisfying substitute — prone to rust, unpopular with the public, and barely worth the trouble to produce — but municipalities and regional banks had little choice while the Reichsbank struggled to supply adequate fractional currency.
Braunschweig's Staatsbank, unlike many municipal notgeld issuers of the period, operated under formal banking authority rather than as a purely administrative emergency measure.
The Braunschweig Staatsbank issued this iron Pfennig notgeld during the acute small-change famine that gripped Germany in 1921, when chronic metal shortages and runaway inflation had driven virtually all pre-war coinage from circulation. Iron was an unsatisfying substitute — prone to rust, unpopular with the public, and barely worth the trouble to produce — but municipalities and regional banks had little choice while the Reichsbank struggled to supply adequate fractional currency.
Braunschweig's Staatsbank, unlike many municipal notgeld issuers of the period, operated under formal banking authority rather than as a purely administrative emergency measure.