50 Pfennig - Neustadt a. Donau

Issued by the municipal government of Neustadt an der Donau in 1918, this zinc piece belongs to the vast flood of German and Austrian Notgeld produced as wartime metal shortages stripped conventional coinage from circulation. By 1918, the imperial authorities had long since commandeered copper and nickel for munitions, leaving towns to improvise with whatever alloys remained available — zinc being among the least desirable. Municipal issues like this one were technically illegal under Reich monetary law but were tolerated out of practical necessity, particularly in smaller Bavarian communities where coin shortages became acute well before the armistice.