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5 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Landeshauptstadt Karlsruhe (City of Karlsruhe) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Green and blue Notgeld Gutschein printed on plain paper, with a decorative guilloche border enclosing the central text panel; a large numeral '5' set within a rope-style vignette occupies the left panel, flanked by the word 'MILLIONEN' in arched banners above and below. The main field carries the denomination in Gothic blackletter script reading 'Fünf Millionen Mark', surmounted by the issuing authority legend in a curved arc, with a small oval architectural vignette visible in the background underprint. A red serial number and a small star separator appear at lower left, with the manuscript signature of the Stadtrat at lower right. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Blue and green reverse printed by A. Kusche, centred on a finely rendered panoramic vignette of the Karlsruhe Eisenbahnhof as it appeared in 1853, with horse-drawn carriages and period figures in the foreground set against a clouded sky. The denomination 'FÜNF MILLIONEN MARK' appears in bold serif capitals at the top centre, with the numeral '5' repeated in each corner and a large lathe-work guilloche numeral at the right. A caption below the vignette identifies the historical scene. |
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| Comments |
Karlsruhe's municipal administration issued this 5,000,000 Mark note in 1923 as Notgeld — emergency currency printed to compensate for the catastrophic shortage of Reichsbank notes during hyperinflation. By mid-1923, the central bank simply could not print fast enough to meet demand, and hundreds of German municipalities stepped in to fill the gap. A. Kusche was a local Karlsruhe printer, not a specialist banknote firm, which is typical of the emergency circumstances that produced the entire series.
The five-million denomination places this note in the accelerating summer phase of the inflation, before the truly astronomical figures of October and November 1923.