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100 000 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Cities of Eschweiler and Stolberg |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 100 000 000 000 Mark (100 000 000 000) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Reverse printed in brown on an ochre guilloche underprint, centred on the large numeral '100' flanked by two oval vignettes each bearing a lion passant above a fortified wall — the civic arms of Eschweiler (left) and Stolberg (right). The denomination 'Milliarden Mark' is set in bold letterpress below, with ribbon banners above and below reading 'Eschweiler' and 'Stolberg Rhld.' respectively. A four-line satirical verse is printed within a cartouche at centre reading 'Die Menschen sagen immer, die Zeiten werden schlimmer, die Zeiten bleiben immer, die Menschen werden schlimmer.' A brown panel with the repeated denomination appears at the far right margin. |
| Reverse lettering | 100 Milliarden Mark / Eschweiler / Stolberg Rhld. / Die Menschen sagen immer, die Zeiten werden schlimmer, die Zeiten bleiben immer, die Menschen werden schlimmer. |
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| Comments |
Eschweiler and Stolberg were neighboring industrial towns in the Rhineland whose municipal authorities, like hundreds of German cities in late 1923, began printing their own emergency currency as the Reichsbank's hyperinflationary spiral made official notes worthless almost immediately upon issue. This joint issuance — two municipalities combining on a single notgeld series — was an administrative convenience driven by the sheer pace of denomination escalation. By the time 100-billion-mark notes were necessary, the printing logistics had become as chaotic as the economics.
The Merkelbach catalog reference places this firmly within the documented Rhineland notgeld corpus, though survival rates for these late hyperinflationary issues vary sharply: many were redeemed almost immediately after the Rentenmark stabilization in November 1923 and pulped.