5 000 000 Mark Phoenix Aktien-Gesellschaft für Bergbau und Hüttenbetrieb

Phoenix AG was one of the great integrated steel and mining combines of the Ruhr — coal pits, coke ovens, blast furnaces, rolling mills — and like most large industrial employers in the hyperinflation of 1923, it issued its own emergency currency (Notgeld) to meet payroll when the Reichsbank could not supply usable denominations fast enough. The five-million mark figure, staggering on its face, was routine by mid-1923; within weeks of issue such notes were often worth less than the paper they were printed on.

Greven & Bechtold of Cologne were active commercial printers who took on substantial Notgeld work during this period. The watermark is the one concession to security on what was, in practice, a short-lived internal instrument.