1 Pfennig - Crossen

Crossen an der Oder issued iron emergency coinage — Notgeld — during the material shortages of World War I, when copper and other base metals were requisitioned for the war effort. Iron was the fallback for dozens of small German municipalities facing the same problem simultaneously. Crossen, a small Brandenburg town on the Oder, had neither the volume nor the infrastructure of larger issuers; surviving pieces in unworn condition are genuinely scarce, iron being far more susceptible to corrosion than the brass or zinc alternatives some towns chose.