100 Milliarden - Heilbronn

By October 1923, Germany's hyperinflation had rendered the Reichsmark so worthless that municipal and regional authorities across the country were issuing their own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to keep local commerce functioning. Heilbronn's 100-Milliarden-Mark piece represents the upper extreme of that collapse: a denomination that would have been unthinkable eighteen months earlier.

The gilding on the brass flan was not decorative vanity. At this denomination, the issuing city had an interest in producing something that felt like it held value, however briefly.