100 000 Mark

Wimpfen am Neckar — a small medieval town in Württemberg — was among the hundreds of German municipalities forced to print their own emergency currency during the hyperinflationary spiral of 1923. The Reichsbank simply could not produce notes fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power, so local authorities stepped in under emergency decree. A 100,000 Mark denomination that would have seemed absurd in 1921 was routine small change by mid-1923.

Reinhold C. & S. in Heilbronn handled production for several regional Notgeld issuers during this period, which explains the watermarked stock — a modest security measure that most municipal printers skipped entirely.