50 Pfennig - Markstädt

Markstädt was a small German-administered town in the Posen region — territory that would be transferred to the newly reconstituted Polish state under the Treaty of Versailles just months after this piece was struck. Emergency iron coinage of this type proliferated across German municipalities in 1918 as the imperial government's war economy had drained copper and nickel reserves to the point where local authorities were left to solve the small-change shortage themselves. By the time Markstädt became Markstadt and then Środa Wielkopolska, this notgeld had long ceased to circulate.