Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
20 000 000 000 Mark Kreis Schwerin an der Warthe
| Issuer | Kreiskommunalkasse Schwerin a. W. (District Communal Treasury Schwerin on the Warthe) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 143 × 72 mm |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Black letterpress text on orange-tinted paper, with a decorative border of repeating oval and dash motifs framing the entire note. The heading reads 'Notgeld des Kreises Schwerin a. W.' in bold Gothic script, below which a serial number field and the denomination 'Zwanzig Milliarden Mark' are printed in large display type. The lower portion carries a multi-line redemption clause, the place and date 'Schwerin a. Warthe, den 2. November 1923', and a manuscript signature above the designation 'Landrat', issued on behalf of the Kreisausschuss; the vertical left margin bears the denomination '20 Milliarden Mark' in rotated text. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Plain orange paper reverse, entirely unprinted save for a blind-embossed official seal of the Kreisausschuss Schwerin positioned at centre, bearing a heraldic device and circular inscription. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Schwerin an der Warthe — now Skwierzyna, in present-day Poland — was one of hundreds of German administrative districts that printed their own emergency currency during the hyperinflation of 1923, when the Reichsbank simply could not supply denominations fast enough to keep pace with price collapse. By the time a district-level Kreiskommunalkasse was authorizing twenty-billion-mark notes, the currency was already functionally worthless within days of issue; the embossed seal was an attempt at authenticity on an instrument that would be obsolete before the ink dried.
The series belongs to the last, most chaotic phase of Notgeld production, October–November 1923, immediately before the Rentenmark stabilization cut the floor out from under all of it.