50 Pfennig - Lenggries

Issued under the emergency currency (Notgeld) authorizations that proliferated across German municipalities from 1916 onward, this zinc piece reflects the acute metal shortages that forced local governments to fill the gap left by hoarded silver and copper coinage. Lenggries, a small Bavarian market town in the Isar valley, was among hundreds of communities that struck their own subsidiary currency when the Reichsbank could no longer supply adequate small change during the war's third year.

Zinc was the compromise material of the period — abundant, workable, but prone to corrosion and die wear. Many of these municipal issues survive in poor condition precisely because zinc degrades aggressively in circulation.