50 Pfennigs - Crailsheim Wilh. Habermeier

Crailsheim notgeld of this type was issued by private firms during the acute coin shortage that gripped Germany from 1916 onward, as wartime metal requisitioning stripped zinc, nickel, and copper from civilian currency production. Wilh. Habermeier — almost certainly a local merchant or manufacturing concern — issued these pieces as emergency substitute currency redeemable within a limited commercial radius, a practice the Reich initially tolerated before tightening controls on private notgeld issuers toward the end of the war.