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50 000 000 Mark

Issuer Stadt Gräfrath (City of Gräfrath)
Year 1923
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Obverse description The obverse is set against a cream ground with a lavender wavy-line guilloche underprint occupying the right third of the note. The denomination is rendered in large blackletter script at centre, flanked by two small foliate ornaments, above a two-line redemption clause in Roman type; the city arms of Gräfrath — a heraldic tower vignette — appear twice, at lower left and lower right. The issue date 'Gräfrath, den 20. September 1923' is printed centrally below the text block, followed by the facsimile signature of the Bürgermeister, with a serial number printed vertically in the right margin.
Obverse lettering Gutschein der Stadt Gräfrath
Fünfzig Millionen Mark
zahlt die Stadt Gräfrath gegen diesen Gutschein dem Einlieferer. Der Gutschein verliert seine Gültigkeit nach Aufkündigung in den Solinger Zeitungen
Gräfrath, den 20. September 1923.
Der Bürgermeister:
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Comments

Gräfrath was a small industrial town in the Bergisches Land, absorbed into Solingen in 1929. Like hundreds of German municipalities during the hyperinflation peak of late 1923, it issued its own emergency currency — Notgeld — because Reichsbank notes were arriving too slowly and in denominations already rendered worthless by the time they reached local circulation. Fifty million marks sounds staggering; in October 1923 it would not have bought a loaf of bread for long.

Municipal Notgeld at this denomination tier was typically printed on whatever stock was locally available, often with rudimentary typography.

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