Oskar Kiesel & Co. was a Munich-based trading firm that issued private emergency coinage — Notgeld — during the acute small-change shortages that plagued Germany in the early 1920s. Municipal and commercial issuers alike filled the gap left by the collapse of state coinage infrastructure, and firms of Kiesel's scale had both the commercial incentive and the procurement access to commission token issues in nickel-plated zinc, a wartime substitute material that lingered well into the postwar economy.
The Menzel reference numbers suggest this piece has been catalogued across at least two major editions, indicating it was known to collectors early in the systematic documentation of German commercial Notgeld.
Oskar Kiesel & Co. was a Munich-based trading firm that issued private emergency coinage — Notgeld — during the acute small-change shortages that plagued Germany in the early 1920s. Municipal and commercial issuers alike filled the gap left by the collapse of state coinage infrastructure, and firms of Kiesel's scale had both the commercial incentive and the procurement access to commission token issues in nickel-plated zinc, a wartime substitute material that lingered well into the postwar economy.
The Menzel reference numbers suggest this piece has been catalogued across at least two major editions, indicating it was known to collectors early in the systematic documentation of German commercial Notgeld.