50 Pfennigs - Eisleben Mansfeldsche Gewerkschaft

The Mansfeldsche Gewerkschaft was one of Germany's oldest and largest copper-mining operations, with continuous extraction in the Mansfeld district dating back to the medieval period. By 1918, wartime metal requisitions had stripped the Reichsbank's ability to supply adequate subsidiary coinage, forcing large industrial employers — particularly those in remote mining regions — to issue their own notgeld to pay workers. This piece is unusual among 1918 emergency issues in being struck in silver rather than the zinc, iron, or pressed cardboard that dominated wartime notgeld production.

The Mansfeld mines would nationalize under the Weimar Republic and later become a centerpiece of East German industrial policy.