Catalog
5 000 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadtgemeinde Danzig (City of Danzig) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Dieſer Notgeldſchein iſt in der Zeit vom 5. bis 10. Oktober 1923 bei der Kämmereikaſſe einzulöſen. ⸻ Notgeldſchein der Stadtgemeinde Danzig über Fünf Milliarden Mark Deutſche Reichswährung. Danzig, den 11. Oktober 1923. Der Senat Verwaltung der Stadtgemeinde Danzig 5 Milliarden ⸻ Wer dieſe Scheinenachmacht oder verfälſcht, oder nachgemachte oder verfälſchte Scheine ſich verſchafft und in den Verkehr bringt, wird mit Zuchthaus nicht unter zwei Jahren beſtraft, |
| Reverse description | Plain unprinted paper reverse, with show-through of the obverse text visible due to the thinness of the note stock. A circular handstamp impression is faintly visible at left, applied during issue. |
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| Comments |
Danzig's status as a Free City under League of Nations protection from 1920 onward left it economically entangled with Weimar Germany while nominally independent — which meant it imported Germany's hyperinflation wholesale. By late 1923, municipal emergency issues were reaching denominations that would have been inconceivable two years earlier. This note, printed locally, was part of the city's own Notgeld response to the collapse in purchasing power rather than a Reichsbank instrument.
The five-billion mark denomination places this firmly in the terminal phase of the inflation crisis, issued weeks before the Rentenmark stabilization of November 1923 effectively ended the emergency.