50 Pfennig - Rodach Max Roesler A.G.

Max Roesler A.G. was a major German porcelain and glass manufacturer based in Rodach bei Coburg, and this notgeld piece was issued during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the early 1920s. Private firms across the country were authorized — or simply took it upon themselves — to issue emergency currency when the Reichsbank could not keep pace with demand for low-denomination coinage. Zinc was the pragmatic choice: cheap, available, and already familiar from wartime substitute coinage.