Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
100 000 000 000 Mark Reichsbanknote
| Issuer | Reichsbank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 135 × 65 mm |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Typographically austere note printed in blue-grey on cream paper, dominated by the large ornate Gothic letterpress denomination "EINHUNDERT MILLIARDEN MARK" across the upper and central fields, surmounted by the title "REICHSBANKNOTE" in spaced Roman capitals. The lower portion carries the payment clause in smaller letterpress text, flanked on the left by a vertical anti-counterfeiting warning, and bears two circular Reichsbankdirektorium dry-stamp seals enclosing the Imperial eagle, with twelve facsimile signatures of the Reichsbank directorate arranged in three rows between them; the numeral "100" appears in large format at the lower right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Oak leaves watermark on the right portion of the note |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
By the time this note was authorized in late October 1923, the Reichsbank was issuing denominations that would have been unimaginable eighteen months earlier. The 100 billion Mark note sits near the top of the hyperinflationary spiral that saw the Mark lose essentially all value between the summer and November 1923 — when Stresemann's government finally introduced the Rentenmark at a conversion rate of one trillion old Marks to one new unit.
Printing at this scale created genuine logistical problems. Paper supply, ink, and press time were all strained; some notes from this period were printed on one side only, or on whatever stock was available. P#126 was produced in Berlin, but regional emergency issuers were simultaneously flooding the country with their own Notgeld to compensate for the Reichsbank's inability to keep up with demand.
Circulation life was measured in hours.