See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration! or register with email

Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!

5 000 000 000 Mark

Issuer Stadtgemeinde Lörrach (City Municipality of Lörrach)
Year 1923
Type Local banknote
Value Log in to see details
Currency Log in to see details
Composition Log in to see details
Size Log in to see details
Shape Log in to see details
Printer Log in to see details
Designer(s) Log in to see details
Engraver(s) Log in to see details
In circulation to Log in to see details
Reference(s) Log in to see details
Obverse description Salmon-tinted notgeld on plain paper with a delicate floral and foliate underprint across the entire field. The issuer title 'Stadtgemeinde Lörrach' is set in bold Gothic letterpress at the top, flanked left and right by the denomination '5 Milliarden Mark' in matching typeface. The central text reads 'Gutschein über Fünf Milliarden' in large display type, with the validity clause 'Gültig bis zum Aufruf' below; at the lower left a red serial number with 'Nº' prefix, at centre a circular red municipality stamp of Lörrach bearing its arms, and at lower right the manuscript signature of the Oberbürgermeister above his printed title.
Obverse lettering Log in to see details
Reverse description Log in to see details
Reverse lettering Log in to see details
Signature(s) Log in to see details
Protection type Official stamp
Protection description Log in to see details
Variants Log in to see details
Comments

Lörrach sits on the Rhine directly opposite Basel, and in late 1923 that geography mattered enormously. Swiss francs were crossing the border in both directions as local residents desperately sought hard currency, while municipal authorities scrambled to print emergency Notgeld in denominations that would have been unimaginable two years earlier. Five billion marks was not an abstraction — it was roughly the cost of a loaf of bread during the peak hyperinflationary weeks of October and November 1923.

The official stamp is the sole security feature, which tells you everything about how quickly these notes were produced and how briefly anyone expected them to circulate.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE