5 000 000 Mark

Hamborn was an industrial town in the Ruhr, home to major steelworks and a large working-class population that needed to be paid when Reichsbank notes became practically worthless overnight. Municipal notgeld at this denomination was a payroll necessity, not a novelty. The Stadtverwaltung — the city administration itself, not a bank — assumed the issuing function because no other local authority could move fast enough.

Gube & Buchloh were a local printing firm, which meant short turnaround but limited security features. By mid-1923, the five-million mark face value was already losing purchasing power before the ink dried.