A. Gutschow was a Berlin-based merchant or business concern that issued notgeld-style token coinage — almost certainly during the iron shortage years of World War I, when the imperial government's inability to maintain adequate small change pushed countless private firms to fill the gap themselves. Iron was the material of necessity, not preference, adopted across German private issues precisely because copper and nickel had been redirected to the war economy by 1916.
The Menzel reference numbers place this firmly in the catalogued German trade token literature, though Gutschow itself leaves little historical trace beyond the token.
A. Gutschow was a Berlin-based merchant or business concern that issued notgeld-style token coinage — almost certainly during the iron shortage years of World War I, when the imperial government's inability to maintain adequate small change pushed countless private firms to fill the gap themselves. Iron was the material of necessity, not preference, adopted across German private issues precisely because copper and nickel had been redirected to the war economy by 1916.
The Menzel reference numbers place this firmly in the catalogued German trade token literature, though Gutschow itself leaves little historical trace beyond the token.