Gotthelf Heimann & Co. was a Halle-based textile and clothing firm that issued this notgeld piece during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the early 1920s, when municipalities and private businesses alike were authorized to produce their own emergency coinage. Zinc was the material of necessity — aluminium and iron had been largely exhausted by wartime requisitioning, and copper was politically impossible.
Private commercial notgeld of this type was typically redeemable only at the issuing firm, functioning as a captive-currency device as much as a practical solution to coin shortages.
Gotthelf Heimann & Co. was a Halle-based textile and clothing firm that issued this notgeld piece during the acute small-change shortage that gripped Germany in the early 1920s, when municipalities and private businesses alike were authorized to produce their own emergency coinage. Zinc was the material of necessity — aluminium and iron had been largely exhausted by wartime requisitioning, and copper was politically impossible.
Private commercial notgeld of this type was typically redeemable only at the issuing firm, functioning as a captive-currency device as much as a practical solution to coin shortages.