50 Pfennig - Hammerstein

Hammerstein's zinc notgeld emerged from the acute metal shortages of 1917, when the German war economy had consumed copper and nickel reserves to the point that municipal authorities across the Reich were authorized to strike their own emergency coinage. West Prussia was already under considerable administrative strain by this point, sitting close enough to the Eastern Front's logistical corridors that civilian supply chains were routinely disrupted. The city — known today as Czarne, Poland — issued these pieces as a purely practical stopgap, not a commemorative gesture.

Zinc was the last resort material; it corrodes readily in circulation, which explains why surviving examples in clean condition are harder to locate than the mintage volumes might suggest.