50 Pfennig - Speyer

Speyer's zinc Notgeld emerged from the acute metal shortages of 1917, when wartime requisitioning had stripped Germany's municipal treasuries of copper and nickel alike. The Imperial government had been seizing base metals for munitions production since 1915, leaving municipal authorities scrambling to maintain small-change circulation through locally issued emergency coinage. Zinc, being harder to machine and prone to corrosion, was a poor substitute — and surviving examples frequently show the characteristic surface pitting that zinc coins of this period develop over time.

The two Funck varieties (3A and 3B) differ by die, a distinction that points to multiple production runs within the same year.