50 Pfennig - Weissenfels an der Saale

Weißenfels issued this iron notgeld piece in 1918 as the German war economy had stripped copper, nickel, and zinc from municipal coinage entirely. Iron was the last resort — cheap, abundant, and deeply unpopular with the public, who understood exactly what it signaled about the state of the Reich's reserves. Many towns across Saxony-Anhalt issued similar emergency pieces that year, but survival rates vary considerably; iron corrodes aggressively in circulation, and lightly used examples in sound condition are not the rule.