Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
50 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Wattenscheid (City of Wattenscheid) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Mark (1914-1924) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Printed in red on cream paper, the obverse carries a central oval vignette of a robed civic figure against a guilloche underprint bearing the city name 'Wattenscheid' in large script letters. The denomination '50,000,000' appears in the upper corners in bold Gothic numerals, with the issuing authority legend and payment promise text arranged in Fraktur script across the centre. The date 'den 1. Septbr. 1923' and a circular city seal are printed at the lower left, with a facsimile signature of the Bürgermeister at the lower right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed entirely in red on cream paper, with a guilloche latticework underprint filling the central panel. A large circular guilloche rosette occupies the centre, containing a small landscape vignette, overlaid with the bold numeral '50000000' and the denomination text in two lines of Fraktur script. The denomination figure '50,000,000' is repeated in each corner at an angle, and the issuer name 'Stadt Wattenscheid' is inscribed in Gothic lettering across the top. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Wattenscheid was an independent industrial city in the Ruhr — coal and steel country — when it issued this 50-million Mark emergency note in the autumn of 1923, at the peak of Germany's hyperinflationary collapse. By October of that year, the Reichsbank was printing denominations in the billions, and local authorities across the country scrambled to produce their own Notgeld to make payroll and keep commerce moving at all.
Municipal issues like this one were typically lithographed locally under rushed conditions, which accounts for the variable print quality seen across surviving examples of Wattenscheid's high-denomination series. The city was absorbed into Bochum in 1975.