50 Pfennig - Vohwinkel

Vohwinkel was an independent municipality in the Bergisches Land region of western Germany — it would later be absorbed into Wuppertal in 1929. This iron notgeld piece dates to the acute metal shortages of 1918, when base metals for civilian coinage had been systematically redirected to war production for four years. Municipal authorities across Germany were issuing emergency currency by this point less out of bureaucratic initiative than sheer necessity; federal coin supplies had effectively collapsed at the local level.

Iron was an unsatisfying substitute — it corrodes readily, and surviving examples in clean condition are harder to find than the mintage figures might suggest.