200 000 Mark Lohnscheck

Mengen is a small town in the Swabia region of Württemberg, and this 200,000 Mark Lohnscheck — a payroll cheque — dates from the hyperinflationary peak of 1923, when municipal authorities across Germany were authorized to issue emergency wage instruments because Reichsbank notes simply could not be printed and distributed fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. The Lohnscheck format was specifically designed for wage disbursement, not general retail circulation, which means these saw heavy handling in a very short window before the denomination itself became worthless.

Small municipal issuers like Mengen produced these in limited runs, often on whatever paper stock was locally available. Survivors are scarcer than the more famous city issues.