100 000 Mark

Pirmasens in 1923 was a shoe-manufacturing town caught in the same inflationary collapse as every other German municipality that summer. This note is Notgeld — emergency currency issued by the city government when Reichsbank denominations became inadequate faster than Berlin could print replacements. By the time 100,000-Mark notes were circulating, they represented perhaps a day's wages, if that.

Local printing at this scale meant no intaglio, no sophisticated anti-counterfeiting. The official seal was the only security measure the city could credibly apply, and it served more as an administrative legitimizing stamp than a genuine deterrent.