5 000 000 Mark

Pirmasens was the center of Germany's shoe manufacturing industry, and its municipal emergency money during the hyperinflation of 1923 reflects the desperation of that period with unusual clarity. By August 1923, the Reichsmark was collapsing so fast that local authorities — cities, towns, even private firms — were legally permitted to issue their own Notgeld to keep commerce moving when official currency simply couldn't be printed fast enough to match price increases.

A five-million mark note from a shoe-town municipality is mundane in one sense; dozens of German cities issued denominations at this scale that summer. What makes Pirmasens issues worth noting is how rapidly even these notes became inadequate — within weeks of printing, five million marks wouldn't cover a loaf of bread.