1 000 000 000 Mark

This is German Notgeld — emergency currency issued at the regional level during the hyperinflation of 1923, when the Reichsbank could not print fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. The issuing authority here is an unusual coalition: the united districts of the Regierungsbezirk Trier, the city of Trier itself, and the Province of Birkenfeld — a joint arrangement that reflected both administrative pragmatism and the political awkwardness of the Rhineland's partially occupied status under the post-Versailles settlement.

Schaar & Dathe, the local Trier printer responsible for this note, produced several denominations for this issuing consortium. By the time a billion-mark note was necessary, the denomination itself had ceased to function as a meaningful unit of account.