5 000 000 000 Mark

Siegkreis — the administrative district centered on the Sieg River valley south of Cologne — was one of hundreds of German local authorities forced into emergency currency issuance during the hyperinflationary collapse of late 1923. By the time this note was authorized, the Reichsbank's own printing capacity had become a logistical absurdity: presses ran continuously, denomination ceilings were breached within days of printing, and regional bodies were legally permitted to issue their own notgeld to keep local commerce moving at all.

Rhenania-Druckerei in Bonn handled a considerable volume of Rhineland district notgeld during this period, which is why the print quality here is more consistent than the improvised stamp-on-cardboard issues coming out of smaller municipalities simultaneously. The five billion mark denomination places this firmly in the October–November 1923 window, when that figure represented roughly the cost of a loaf of bread.