1 Trillion Mark - Westfalen Freiherr vom Stein

By October 1923, Germany's hyperinflation had grown so extreme that the Reichsbank could no longer supply enough currency for ordinary commerce. Provincial and municipal authorities — Notgeld issuers — stepped in with emergency money denominated in figures that would have been unimaginable two years earlier. Westphalia's trillion-mark piece is among the largest-denomination coins ever struck for actual circulation, not as a novelty but out of genuine fiscal necessity.

The Freiherr vom Stein referenced here is Karl vom Stein, the Prussian reformer who reorganized the German administrative state after Napoleon's devastation — a pointed choice for a Westphalian issue, as Stein was instrumental in establishing the provincial structures that made such regional emergency authority possible.