5 000 000 000 Mark

Steinen is a small municipality in the Wiesental valley of Baden, and its decision to issue notgeld at this denomination — five billion marks — dates it precisely to the hyperinflationary peak of late 1923, when the Reichsmark was collapsing fast enough that municipal authorities across Germany were printing their own emergency currency simply to make payroll. Gg. Uehlin was a local Schopfheim printer, not a specialist currency firm, and the physical note reflects that: a jobbing commercial press pressed into monetary service.

The denomination itself tells the story. By November 1923, five billion marks would not have bought a newspaper.