50 Pfennig - Frankenthal

Frankenthal's 1918 iron notgeld emerged from the acute metal shortages that gripped German municipalities as the war consumed copper, nickel, and zinc for shell casings and machinery. Cities across the Rhineland-Palatinate region issued their own emergency coinage that year with little central coordination, which is why Funck catalogues dozens of distinct local types from this single twelve-month window. Iron was a poor substitute — it corrodes readily in circulation, and surviving examples in clean condition are rarer than mintage figures would suggest.