50 Pfennig - Frankenthal

Frankenthal's 1917 zinc notgeld issue belongs to the first wave of German municipal emergency coinage, authorized after the Reich's silver and copper stocks were diverted to the war economy and small change effectively vanished from civilian circulation. Zinc was the compromise — abundant, workable, deeply unpopular with the public, who found it corroded quickly and stuck in vending machines.

The Palatinate region was under particular supply strain by 1917, the third winter of the war and arguably the worst for the home front.