1 Trillion Mark - Westfalen Freiherr vom Stein

By late 1923, Germany's hyperinflation had grown so extreme that regional governments and private entities were authorized to issue their own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to keep commerce functioning. Westphalia's provincial administration issued this piece under the name of Freiherr vom Stein, the Prussian reformer who had reorganized German civic administration a century earlier, lending a veneer of institutional legitimacy to what was essentially improvised money.

Tombac — a brass alloy — was chosen because aluminum and zinc supplies were already strained by smaller-denomination emergency issues. At 60 mm, this is among the largest of the inflation-era metal Notgeld pieces, struck when the Reichsmark had not yet replaced the collapsing Papiermark in November 1923.