2 000 000 Mark Gutehoffnungshütte

Gutehoffnungshütte — the "Good Hope Foundry" — was one of the Ruhr's industrial giants, and like hundreds of German firms in 1923, it was forced to become its own bank. Hyperinflation had so thoroughly destroyed the Reichsmark's purchasing power that companies printed emergency wage notes, Notgeld, simply to pay their workers on time before the money lost further value in transit. At the 2,000,000 Mark denomination, this note was already obsolete within weeks of printing.

The embossed seal was a practical anti-counterfeiting measure common to corporate issues, applied in-house rather than by a specialist security printer.