10 000 000 000 Mark Landesbank der Rheinprovinz

The Landesbank der Rheinprovinz was not a central bank but a provincial public credit institution — its entry into emergency currency issuance during the hyperinflation of 1923 reflects how completely the Reichsbank had lost control of the money supply by that autumn. Notgeld at this denomination level was a daily operational necessity, not a collector exercise; ten billion marks would buy roughly a loaf of bread at the peak of the crisis in late 1923.

J. P. Bachem was a Cologne commercial printer and Catholic publishing house, better known for religious and legal texts than banknote production. The improvised nature of the source is visible in the typography.