50 Pfennig - Wangen im Allgäu

Wangen im Allgäu issued this zinc notgeld piece in 1918 as the German imperial coinage system buckled under wartime metal requisitions. Copper and nickel had been diverted to the war effort years earlier, leaving municipalities across Württemberg and Bavaria to fill the gap with locally authorized emergency coinage. Zinc was the compromise material — plentiful, unglamorous, and deeply unpopular with the public for its tendency to corrode in pocket humidity.

The Funck reference places this among the more precisely documented Swabian municipal issues of the period.