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10 000 000 000 Mark Tiengen

Issuer Stadtkasse Tiengen
Year 1923
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Currency Mark (1914-1924)
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Obverse description Green letterpress note on cream paper, divided into two panels by a vertical rule. The left panel carries the denomination text and bearer clause within a sawtooth-pattern border frame, dated 26. Oktober 1923, with the Bürgermeister's manuscript signature below. The right panel bears the circular Town of Tiengen municipal seal with a crowned Madonna and Child vignette, flanked by towers, with the serial number at lower right.
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Reverse description Plain cream paper reverse, unprinted, showing bleed-through of the obverse text and municipal seal vignette in mirror image. No design elements or inscriptions are present on this side.
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Tiengen's Stadtkasse issued this 10-billion Mark note at the absolute peak of Weimar hyperinflation, when municipal authorities across Germany were legally empowered to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — because the Reichsbank simply could not produce denominations fast enough to keep pace with daily price collapses. J. Fr. Greiner was a local printer, not a security press, which is exactly the point: by late 1923 the distinction between a banknote and a locally printed receipt had effectively ceased to exist.

Tiengen, a small town in Baden near the Swiss border, circulated this alongside Swiss Francs in many daily transactions — the hard currency immediately next door made the absurdity of the denomination impossible to ignore.

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