50 000 000 000 Mark

Hofgeismar was a small district in the Prussian province of Hessen-Nassau, and like hundreds of German municipalities in late 1923, its Kreisausschuss was forced into the absurd position of issuing its own emergency currency — Notgeld — denominated in figures that had become meaningless almost as soon as the ink dried. Fifty billion Mark was not an unusual face value for October–November 1923; notes of this denomination were sometimes worth less than a loaf of bread by the day after issue.

The printer, Aktiengesellschaft für Druck und Verlag (formerly Ger. Döttner) in Kassel, handled inflation Notgeld for multiple Hessian issuers during this period, which accounts for the family resemblance seen across several district issues from the region.