50 000 000 000 Mark Bühl

Fifty billion marks — issued by a small Baden town in the autumn of 1923, when the Reichsbank simply could not print fast enough to keep the wheels of daily commerce turning. Municipal and commercial Notgeld at these denominations wasn't an act of monetary ambition; it was triage. Bühl's administration, like hundreds of others across Germany, was authorized to issue emergency paper to cover payroll and local transactions while hyperinflation made yesterday's notes worthless by morning.

Druckerei Konkordia was a local press, and the production quality reflects that — these notes were printed fast, in quantity, with no pretense of security printing. The Rentenmark stabilization of November 1923 rendered the entire series obsolete within weeks of issue.