10 000 000 000 Mark Vereinigung von Hamburger Banken und Bankiers

The Vereinigung von Hamburger Banken und Bankiers — an association of private Hamburg banks acting collectively — issued emergency currency during the hyperinflation peak of late 1923, when the Reichsbank could not print fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. Ten billion marks was not an unusual face value for that autumn; within weeks of notes like this entering circulation, the denomination was already functionally obsolete.

Persiehl was a Hamburg-based printer with an established commercial reputation, not a specialist security printer, which is worth noting when evaluating the watermark as the primary — and thin — anti-counterfeiting measure.