50 Pfennig - Mühlhausen in Thüringen

Mühlhausen issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1917 as Germany's wartime metal requisitions stripped copper and nickel from civilian coinage. The city — better known historically as the base of Thomas Müntzer's radical Anabaptist commune during the 1525 Peasants' War — had little say in the matter; municipalities across the Reich were effectively compelled to fill the small-change vacuum left by hoarding and official melting programs. Zinc was the pragmatic fallback: abundant, cheap, and deeply unpopular with the public, who found it corroded quickly in pocket wear.