5 000 000 Mark Gutehoffnungshütte

Gutehoffnungshütte — the "Good Hope Foundry" — was one of the Ruhr's dominant heavy industrial combines, and like hundreds of German firms in 1923, it became a de facto currency issuer when Reichsbank notes became worthless faster than they could be printed. This is Notgeld in its most purely industrial form: a major steel and mining conglomerate paying its own workers with paper it produced itself, denominated in millions because that was what a day's wages required by mid-1923.

The embossed stamp served as the primary authentication device — cheap to apply, difficult to fake without the original die.