50 Pfennigs - Schlierbach Wächtersbacher Steingutfabrik G.m.b.H.

Wächtersbacher Steingutfabrik, founded in 1832 in the Schlierbach district of Hesse, was primarily a ceramics and stoneware manufacturer — an unusual issuer of emergency coinage. This piece dates from the acute metal shortages of 1918, when German municipalities, firms, and institutions were authorized to produce their own Notgeld to keep small transactions functioning as the Imperial economy collapsed under war strain. Iron was the material of necessity; copper and nickel had long been requisitioned for armaments production.

That a pottery concern was issuing iron tokens in the final months of the war speaks to how thoroughly the civilian economy had been reorganized around the conflict.