5 000 000 Mark

Fürth's city treasury issued this note during the acute phase of Weimar hyperinflation, when municipal governments across Germany were authorized to produce their own emergency currency — Notgeld — to fill the void left by the Reichsbank's inability to print and distribute legal tender fast enough. Five million marks sounds extraordinary; by late 1923 it was pocket change. The Rentenmark reform in November of that year rendered the entire series worthless overnight.

Three separate signatories — the Oberbürgermeister and both deputy mayors — were required on each note, an administrative safeguard that did nothing to slow inflation but speaks to how seriously German municipal authorities treated even their most ephemeral paper obligations.