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1 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadtgemeinde Heidelberg |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse carries a large panoramic landscape vignette in the Romantic style, reproducing a circa-1830 drawing of the view from the Riesensteinkanzel rocky outcrop towards Heidelberg Castle and the Neckar valley. Tall trees frame the left foreground, with rugged rocky terrain to the right and the distant castle ruins and river valley rendered in fine line work evoking early nineteenth-century German Romanticism. The place name 'Heidelberg' is inscribed in Gothic script above the vignette centre, and descriptive legends run along all four borders in small letterpress type. |
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| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | A dry (blind) embossed official municipal seal applied to each note as the sole validity mark; the note is explicitly stated to be invalid without this Trockenstempel. |
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| Comments |
Heidelberg's Stadtgemeinde joined hundreds of German municipal authorities in issuing Notgeld during the hyperinflation of 1923, when the Reichsbank's own currency was losing value faster than it could be printed. A million marks sounds extraordinary; by the autumn of that year, it was bus fare. Municipal issues like this one were legal under emergency decrees but technically obligations of the issuing city rather than the Reich, meaning their redeemability depended entirely on local finances surviving the chaos.
The dry embossed seal functions as the primary authenticating device — a simple but effective measure against forgery at a time when printing anything quickly was more important than elaborate security.