By September 1923, the Reichsbank was issuing denominations in the billions simply to keep pace with daily price movements — a loaf of bread that cost 250 Mark in January 1923 would exceed 200,000 Million Mark by November. The one-billion Mark note was not an aberration; it was briefly a routine transaction unit. The Reichsdruckerei printed these at such volume that standard security protocols were compressed, and the watermark — present in earlier high-denomination issues — remained largely symbolic against a backdrop of industrial-scale overproduction.
Pick 114 was superseded within weeks by notes of still larger face values, ultimately rendered worthless by the Rentenmark stabilization of November 1923.
By September 1923, the Reichsbank was issuing denominations in the billions simply to keep pace with daily price movements — a loaf of bread that cost 250 Mark in January 1923 would exceed 200,000 Million Mark by November. The one-billion Mark note was not an aberration; it was briefly a routine transaction unit. The Reichsdruckerei printed these at such volume that standard security protocols were compressed, and the watermark — present in earlier high-denomination issues — remained largely symbolic against a backdrop of industrial-scale overproduction.
Pick 114 was superseded within weeks by notes of still larger face values, ultimately rendered worthless by the Rentenmark stabilization of November 1923.