50 000 000 000 Mark Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft

Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft — the automaker that would merge with Benz & Cie. in 1926 to form Mercedes-Benz — issued this emergency currency during the hyperinflation peak of late 1923, when the Reichsbank could not produce legal tender fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. Large industrial employers throughout Germany were legally permitted to issue notgeld payable to their own workers as wages, essentially functioning as a private paymaster in the absence of usable state money.

Fifty billion marks. By November 1923, that sum would not have purchased a postage stamp.