Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
5 000 000 Mark Bensberg
| Issuer | Gemeinde Bensberg (Municipality of Bensberg) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Mark (1914-1924) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Notgeld voucher printed in dark green and brown on cream paper, its face enclosed within a dense guilloche border; the issuer's name 'Gemeinde Bensberg' is set in Gothic blackletter at the top above a ribbon cartouche bearing 'Gutschein über', while the denomination 'Fünf Millionen Mark' occupies the centre in bold blackletter over a lace-pattern underprint. Two circular municipal eagle stamps flank the redemption clause text, with the serial number positioned to the upper right. The note is dated 'Bensberg, den 10. August 1923' at the foot, below which appears the Bürgermeister's manuscript signature, with the printer's imprint 'Heiss & Co Köln-Lindenthal' at the lower margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | 5 000 000 HEISS & Co KÖLN-LINDENTHAL. |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Bensberg was a small town in the Bergisches Land east of Cologne, and like hundreds of German municipalities in the summer of 1923, its local government was forced into issuing its own emergency currency simply to meet payroll. The Reichsbank could not print fast enough. Heiss & Co. in Cologne-Lindenthal handled much of the notgeld output for smaller Rhineland communities during this period, which is why their work appears across dozens of otherwise unrelated municipal issues from the same frantic weeks.
The five-million mark denomination dates this note to the acute phase of the hyperinflation, before the November 1923 Rentenmark stabilization made the entire series worthless overnight.