Vienna, 1938: Tramway Token

Here's an interesting token I found in a mixed bunch of world coins today. I bought it because it looked cool and had an older date, but I thought "It only has four letters and four numbers on it. I'll never identify this one."



But, a Google search of "W St B 1938" found exactly what I wanted!! W St B stands for Wiener Strassebahne - the Viennese tramway. At the time, Austria had been incorporated into the Third German Reich through the Anschluss, so this token had a value of 10 reichpfennige. Once WWII started, all copper and brass was taken out of the coinage and replaced with zinc, so it's unlikely that these solid copper tokens lasted very long.

When I first saw this, I thought it was a winged eagle with lightning bolts. But closer inspection reveals a winged wheel. This motif is also seen on the coat of arms of Panama. I guess even the wheels had to look powerful and scary under fascism.