50 Pfennig - Radebeul Chem. Fabr. v. Heyden

The Chemische Fabrik von Heyden in Radebeul was one of Germany's earliest industrial-scale pharmaceutical manufacturers, best known for producing salicylic acid and aspirin precursors in commercial quantities from the 1870s onward. By 1918, with the imperial economy in collapse and metal coinage hoarded or melted, hundreds of German firms issued their own emergency tokens — Kriegsnotgeld — simply to make payroll and canteen transactions possible. Von Heyden was among them. Zinc was the material of last resort, iron and copper having been requisitioned for munitions years earlier.