50 Pfennigs - Ratibor Eisenbahn Haupt Werkstatt

Railway workshop token coinage was a practical response to chronic small-change shortages that plagued industrial Germany during and after World War I. The Eisenbahn Haupt-Werkstatt at Ratibor — a major locomotive maintenance facility in Upper Silesia — issued iron tokens for use within its own payroll and canteen economy, effectively running a closed monetary circuit among its workforce. Iron was the material of necessity; copper and nickel had been requisitioned for the war effort years earlier.

Ratibor itself passed to Poland as Racibórz following the 1921 Upper Silesian plebiscite and subsequent partition, making the operational window for these tokens exceptionally narrow.