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5 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Kreisgemeinde Pfalz (District Municipality of the Palatinate) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 5 000 000 Mark (5 000 000) |
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| Obverse description | Notgeld issued on plain cream paper, with the title legend in Gothic blackletter across the top and a faint watermark-style arms vignette as underprint at centre. The denomination 'Fünf Millionen Mark' is rendered in large bold red Fraktur script, partially enclosed in a ruled rectangular frame at left, with the numeric value '5 000 000 Mark' below in black letterpress. A dotted-border text panel carries the legal guarantee clause in Gothic script, beneath which the place and date of issue 'Speyer a. Rh., 11. August 1923' and the issuing authority 'Kreisgemeinde Pfalz' appear, followed by multiple manuscript signatures of district officials. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | NOTGELDSCHEIN KREISGEMEINDE PFALZ FÜNF MILLIONEN MARK |
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| Comments |
The Palatinate's hyperinflation notgeld occupies a peculiar administrative niche — the Kreisgemeinde Pfalz was a Bavarian regional body issuing emergency currency for a district that, by 1923, was under French military occupation following the Treaty of Versailles. The occupied Rhineland's economic conditions were compounded by the Ruhr crisis and the collapse of the mark that same year, producing denominations that would have been unthinkable even eighteen months earlier.
Five million marks, printed locally in Speyer, was a mid-range denomination for the summer-autumn 1923 wave — within weeks of issue, it would have struggled to buy a loaf of bread.