1 000 000 Mark

Vohwinkel was a small industrial town in the Bergisches Land, absorbed into the newly created city of Wuppertal in 1929. Like hundreds of German municipalities during the hyperinflation of 1923, it issued its own emergency currency — Notgeld — because the Reichsbank simply could not print and distribute legal tender fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. By August 1923, a million marks was roughly the cost of a loaf of bread, which gives the denomination its bleak arithmetic.

Municipal Notgeld of this period was typically printed locally on short notice, and production quality varies considerably within the same series. Separation tears along fold lines are common on surviving examples of Vohwinkel issues.