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50 000 000 000 Mark overprint on 5 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Mannheim (City of Mannheim) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1924 |
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| In circulation to | 1924 |
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| Obverse description | The obverse of this Notgeld emergency issue is printed in black letterpress on white paper, with a bold geometric meander border framing the entire face. A central vignette presents a line-engraved view of the Mannheim Baroque Palace (Mannheimer Schloss), rendered in fine detail. The original denomination "FÜNF MILLIONEN MARK" and the numeral "5 000 000" are overprinted diagonally in large red Fraktur script with the new value "Fünfzig Milliarden Mark", reflecting the hyperinflationary revaluation. A dry embossed municipal seal of Mannheim appears to the left of the central vignette, and the serial number is printed vertically in red at the right margin. |
|---|---|
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| Protection description | Dry embossed circular municipal seal of the City of Mannheim applied to the obverse |
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| Comments |
By late 1923, German municipal emergency money — Notgeld — had entered its most absurd phase. Stadt Mannheim, like dozens of other cities, simply could not print new denominations fast enough to keep pace with hyperinflation, so existing lower-denomination stock was overprinted rather than discarded. This note is a product of that triage: a 5,000,000 Mark note rendered tenfold obsolete almost immediately, then stamped with a 50,000,000,000 Mark value to stay viable for perhaps another week of purchasing power.
The embossed municipal seal was the primary — arguably only — anti-counterfeiting measure, a thin guarantee of authenticity at a moment when the currency itself was worth almost nothing.