10 000 000 000 Marks

Bad Ems issued this note during the most violent phase of German hyperinflation — by late 1923, municipal and district authorities across the Reich were printing their own Notgeld simply to keep local wages moving, as Reichsbank notes became worthless faster than they could be counted. A ten-billion-mark denomination, unthinkable two years earlier, was routine by November of that year.

Local Notgeld from smaller spa towns like Bad Ems was often printed in very short runs and redeemed quickly, which paradoxically makes certain denominations harder to find than issues from larger industrial cities that printed in greater volume.