20 Mark Reichsbanknote

The Reichsbank's 20 Mark denomination occupied an awkward middle ground in daily commerce — large enough to matter, small enough to circulate heavily. Notes from this series absorbed years of real-world handling, and surviving examples that predate the First World War often show the wear to prove it. The cotton substrate held up better than wood-pulp alternatives of the period, but repeated folding along the same crease lines is a known characteristic of this type.

Reichsdruckerei held a near-monopoly on German state printing by this point, a deliberate policy consolidation dating to the 1870s unification. The watermark security on this series was considered adequate until wartime economic pressure made counterfeiting incentives far outweigh the technical barrier it posed.