10 000 000 000 Mark

By late 1923, German municipal authorities were printing their own emergency currency in denominations that would have been unimaginable two years earlier. Cottbus's Magistrat issued this 10-billion-Mark note through Otto Enke, a local commercial printer — not a security printing house — which was entirely typical of Notgeld production at the hyperinflation's peak, when the Reichsdruckerei could not remotely keep pace with demand.

An official seal substitutes for more sophisticated anti-counterfeiting measures, though by this point forgery was economically pointless: inflation was outpacing any forger's press run within days of issue.