50 Pfennig - Frechen Wachtberg I, Wilhelma, Windling

Frechen, west of Cologne, was one of the Rhineland's principal lignite-mining districts, and company-issued token coinage was common practice among the larger colliery operators well into the twentieth century. Tokens like this one functioned within closed pit-economy systems — redeemable at company stores and canteens, keeping worker wages circulating inside the enterprise rather than out into local commerce. Zinc was the material of wartime and shortage; its use here almost certainly dates this piece to one of the two World War periods rather than peacetime production.