100 000 Mark overstamp on 20 Mark

Zweibrücken's 100,000 Mark overstamp on an existing 20 Mark note is a direct artifact of the hyperinflationary spiral of mid-1923, when municipal authorities across Germany were authorized — or simply compelled by circumstance — to issue their own emergency money, known as Notgeld. Rather than commission entirely new printing, the city applied an overprint multiplying the face value 5,000-fold, a ratio that itself became obsolete within weeks as the Reichsmark's purchasing power continued to collapse.

The velocity of devaluation during this period was such that by November 1923 a single US dollar exchanged for roughly 4.2 trillion Marks.