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5 000 000 Mark Bensberg
| Issuer | Gemeinde Bensberg (Municipality of Bensberg) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| 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. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in the same dark green and brown colour scheme, with elaborate guilloche rosettes and scrollwork filling the left and right margins; each of the four corner panels carries the denomination numeral '5 000 000' in white on green within the guilloche border. A central rectangular vignette in fine brown line engraving presents a view of a half-timbered house and a medieval stone tower in Bensberg, with trees and a cobbled street in the foreground, a small artist's signature 'Rüland' appearing at the upper left of the vignette. The printer's imprint is repeated at the lower margin. |
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| 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.