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5 000 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadtgemeinde Pirmasens (City of Pirmasens) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Notgeldschein der Stadtgemeinde Pirmasens Fünf Milliarden Mark Für diesen Notgeldschein haftet das gesamte Vermögen der Stadtgemeinde. Derselbe wird von sämtlichen Kassen der Reichsbank in Zahlung genommen. Dieser Notgeldschein wird ungültig, wenn er nicht innerhalb eines Monats nach erfolgter Bekanntgabe bei den öffentlichen Einzugsstellen eingereicht wird. Bürgermeisteramt: Pirmasens, 15. Oktober 1923 Umlauffähig im ganzen Regierungsbezirk Pfalz Gültig bis zum 1. April 1924 |
| Reverse description | Plain cream paper with a ghost impression of the obverse text visible through the sheet. The heading "Notgeldschein der Stadtgemeinde Pirmasens" is printed in blackletter script across the top. At centre, the municipal coat of arms of Pirmasens — a tower above a gateway flanked by crossed tools, set within a lobed green wreath with radiating rays — forms the principal vignette. The denomination "Fünf Milliarden Mark" in large Gothic typeface with flanking bullet points is printed across the lower portion of the note. |
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| Comments |
Pirmasens was a shoe-manufacturing town in the Palatinate, and its municipal government issued this five-billion-mark note during the hyperinflation peak of autumn 1923 — the period when the Reichsbank's own printing operation could no longer keep pace with denomination demands and hundreds of German municipalities, districts, and private companies issued their own emergency currency, known collectively as Notgeld. By this point the billion-mark threshold had become almost meaningless; the Rentenmark reform of November 1923 would soon sweep the entire inflated structure away at a conversion rate of one trillion old marks to one new unit.
Municipal issues of this denomination were typically printed locally on whatever stock was available, which is why paper quality and print registration vary sharply even within a single series.