50 Pfennig - Langerfeld Alb. and E. Henkels

Issued in 1918 by the Henkels firm in Langerfeld — a textile and metalworking district absorbed into Wuppertal in 1929 — this is a classic example of German wartime Notgeld, produced when the Imperial government's requisitioning of nickel and copper for munitions stripped the civilian economy of small change almost entirely. Private companies, municipalities, and even individual shops were left to fill the gap themselves. Nickel-plated zinc was among the more durable substitute materials chosen, though the plating on surviving pieces frequently shows separation at the edges after a century of handling.