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 Barmen (City of Barmen) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Uniform grey guilloche underprint covers the entire field, composed of intricate lace-like rosette and wave patterns. The large numeral "50" in bold outline script is superimposed centrally over the guilloche work, with the denomination figure "50,000,000" repeated in each of the four corners. A circular red official seal of the Oberbürgermeister of Barmen, bearing the civic lion, is struck at the centre of the "50" vignette. The printer's imprint "August Schmidtmann, Barmen" appears in small type along the bottom margin. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Circular red official seal of the Oberbürgermeister of Barmen, struck on the reverse centre |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Barmen was an industrial city in the Wupper valley — later absorbed into the amalgamated city of Wuppertal in 1929 — and like hundreds of German municipalities in 1923, it was forced to issue its own emergency currency as Reichsbank notes became worthless faster than they could be printed. This 50-million Mark note was issued during the peak hyperinflationary spiral, a period in which denominations escalated so rapidly that notes of this face value were themselves obsolete within weeks of issue.
August Schmidtmann was a local Barmen printer pressed into monetary service by circumstance rather than specialization. The official seal substituting for conventional security printing reflects exactly how improvised the entire Notgeld apparatus had become by late 1923.