50 Pfennig - Mühlberg a. E.

Mühlberg an der Elbe issued this iron notgeld piece in 1917, when the Imperial German war economy had stripped copper, nickel, and zinc from municipal circulation entirely. Iron was the stopgap — cheap, abundant, and deeply unpopular with the public due to rapid rusting. Small towns like Mühlberg had little choice: without authorization to issue paper emergency notes and without access to traditional coining metals, local magistrates petitioned for iron blanks from whatever industrial source was available.

The Funck reference places this among a documented series from the municipality, suggesting coordinated rather than improvised production.