10 Pfennig - Wilhelm I Pattern

Pattern coinage from the early Kaiserreich was produced in considerable variety as Berlin and the newly centralized imperial mint system worked through proposals for a unified German currency — the Mark system having been legislated into existence only in 1871. Copper patterns for the Pfennig denominations were struck in multiple compositions and sizes before iron was settled on for circulating issues, making survivors genuinely documentary pieces rather than proofs of a coin that ever circulated.