Hamburg's 1923 notgeld issues were a direct product of the German hyperinflation crisis, with municipal and regional authorities forced to produce their own emergency coinage as the Reichsmark collapsed in real time. By mid-1923, the exchange rate was deteriorating so rapidly that 200,000 marks represented a sum that had been inconceivable as a coin denomination just two years earlier — and would itself be laughably insufficient within weeks of striking.
Aluminium was the pragmatic choice: metal commodity costs had to remain below face value, which ruled out nearly everything else.
Hamburg's 1923 notgeld issues were a direct product of the German hyperinflation crisis, with municipal and regional authorities forced to produce their own emergency coinage as the Reichsmark collapsed in real time. By mid-1923, the exchange rate was deteriorating so rapidly that 200,000 marks represented a sum that had been inconceivable as a coin denomination just two years earlier — and would itself be laughably insufficient within weeks of striking.
Aluminium was the pragmatic choice: metal commodity costs had to remain below face value, which ruled out nearly everything else.