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 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Laufen (City of Laufen, Bavaria) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| 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 | 1923 |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Typeset Notgeld (emergency currency) voucher printed in green on plain white paper, enclosed within a dotted rectangular border. The heading reads 'Gutschein' with the denomination '20 000 000 Mk.' in the upper right, and the value in large Gothic blackletter script 'Zwanzig Millionen Mark' across the centre. A six-digit serial number appears in the upper left, and the text body contains validity and liability clauses in smaller letterpress type, dated 'Laufen (Obb.), 17. September 1923', with two manuscript signatures below the designations 'Stadtrat' and 'Stadtkassa', and a circular municipal seal of the City of Laufen applied in blue ink at centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Circular blue ink municipal seal of the City of Laufen applied by hand to the obverse, centred over the signature area. |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
A municipal emergency note from the peak of the German hyperinflation, when local authorities across Bavaria were printing their own currency to meet payroll and keep commerce moving after the Reichsbank could no longer supply adequate denominations fast enough. By August–November 1923, denominations in the millions and billions were routine, not extraordinary — the 20 million mark figure here represents roughly one week's purchasing power during the stabilization run-up, before the Rentenmark reset the entire system in November.
J. E. Ried was a local printing house, not a specialist security printer. The official seal substitutes for the technical safeguards that a proper banknote would carry.