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2 000 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Apolda (City of Apolda), Thuringia |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
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| Printer | Adolf Forker, Leipzig, Germany |
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| Obverse description | Notgeld issue printed in brown and olive-green on light green paper, with four corner guilloche rosettes enclosing the numeral "2 Milliarden" in each angle. The large Gothic blackletter denomination "Zwei Milliarden Mark" occupies the centre, beneath the heading "Notgeld der Stadt Apolda" at the top. Below the denomination text is a three-line redemption clause in Fraktur script, dated "Apolda, den 12. Oktober 1923", followed by two manuscript signatures above the titles "Der Stadtdirektor / Oberbürgermeister" and "Der Stadtrat: / Vorsitzender", with the city arms vignette between them; the series letter "G" and serial number appear at the foot, with the printer's imprint "ADOLF FORKER, LEIPZIG." in the lower right margin. |
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| Obverse lettering | Notgeld der Stadt Apolda 2 Milliarden Zwei Milliarden Mark zahlt die Stadtkasse Apolda gegen diesen Schein dem Einlieferer - Vier Wochen nach Aufruf verliert der Schein seine Gültigkeit Apolda, den 12. Oktober 1923 Der Stadtdirektor: Oberbürgermeister Der Stadtrat: Vorsitzender Serie G ADOLF FORKER, LEIPZIG. |
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| Comments |
Apolda's hyperinflation emergency notes from 1923 represent the Notgeld system at its most extreme — municipal authorities across Thuringia were printing their own currency simply to keep wages moving, since Reichsbank notes were arriving too slowly and depreciating too fast to be useful. By late 1923, two billion marks bought roughly what a few pfennigs had bought in 1914. Adolf Forker in Leipzig handled a significant volume of provincial Notgeld printing during this period, supplying multiple Thuringian municipalities as the currency collapsed.
The denomination itself is the story. Apolda, a town of perhaps 25,000 known primarily for its bell foundries and hosiery industry, was issuing notes in the billions.