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20 000 000 000 Mark Altkloster
| Issuer | Gemeinde Altkloster (Municipality of Altkloster) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Green note with blue letterpress text on a pale guilloche underprint. The denomination '20 Milliarden Mark' is printed in large bold blue type at centre, above a circular municipal stamp reading 'Gemeinde Altkloster / Kreis Stade'. A red '20' underprint appears at lower centre, and the serial number is printed in red at upper right beside the word 'Gutschein'. The note bears a handwritten signature above the designation 'Der Gemeindevorstand' at lower right, with the issuing and validity text set in smaller blue type in the body of the note. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse carries a woodcut-style vignette in blue ink occupying the lower two-thirds of the note, showing a view of the village of Altkloster with the former St. Benedict convent church at centre, flanked by timber-framed and masonry buildings, birds in the sky, and a large tree to the right. Above the vignette, a four-line verse in German Fraktur script is printed in blue at upper left, referencing the history of the old cloister and the local sheep market. |
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| Comments |
Altkloster is a small locality near Buxtehude in Lower Saxony, and this 20 billion Mark note is a product of the Papiermark's final, spectacular collapse in autumn 1923 — the denomination alone dates it precisely to late October or November, when municipal and regional authorities across Germany were printing emergency Notgeld faster than the Reichsbank could supply official currency. H. Baerr & Co., operating under the Volksblatt imprint in Harburg an der Elbe, served numerous small municipalities in the Hamburg hinterland during this period, which means the printing quality here is competent but clearly a commercial newspaper job rather than a specialist security printer.
The issuing municipality had fewer than a few hundred residents, making surviving circulation figures essentially meaningless.