50 Pfennig - Dortmund

Dortmund issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917 under the acute metal shortages that followed Germany's wartime requisitioning of copper and nickel. Municipal authorities across the Reich were authorized to produce their own emergency coinage when the central supply collapsed, and Dortmund was among the earlier industrial cities to act on that permission. The Ruhr's coal and steel economy made the city a military production priority, which paradoxically accelerated the disappearance of metal from everyday commerce.

Zinc was the compromise material — abundant enough, but prone to corrosion and die wear, which accounts for the surface degradation seen on a high proportion of surviving specimens.