1 000 000 Mark

Bünde was a linen-weaving town in the Ravensberg district, and like hundreds of German municipalities in 1923, it issued its own emergency currency — Notgeld — because the Reichsbank simply could not print and distribute official notes fast enough to keep pace with hyperinflation. By the time a one-million-mark denomination was necessary for daily transactions, the currency was collapsing faster than any central authority could manage. The city turned to W. Cordes, a local lithographic firm, rather than waiting for a national solution that would have arrived too late to matter.

Municipal Notgeld of this period was printed at the issuer's own risk, redeemable only locally. W. Cordes also printed for other Westphalian municipalities during the same period, making press attribution on unsigned examples occasionally tricky.