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50 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadtkasse Ravensburg (City of Ravensburg) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 154 x 93 mm |
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| Obverse description | Printed in purple-violet on cream paper, the obverse carries a large panoramic vignette of the Ravensburg townscape across the upper centre, with the city's coat of arms held by an armoured knight at left. The denomination numeral '50' appears in a ruled box at upper right. Below, the text is set in Gothic blackletter script, with a red serial number printed at centre bottom, flanked by two manuscript signatures above the titles Oberbürgermeister and Stadtpfleger; the entire design is enclosed within a decorative scalloped border. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is uniface, left entirely blank without any printed design, text, or ornamental elements, showing only the plain cream paper stock through which the obverse impression is faintly visible by transparency. |
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| Comments |
Ravensburg's municipal treasury issued this 50-million-mark note during the most violent phase of the German hyperinflation — by autumn 1923, the Reichsbank could not physically produce currency fast enough, and thousands of local authorities, businesses, and even private companies were legally permitted to issue their own emergency money, known as Notgeld. A Swabian town of modest size printing fifty-million-denomination paper was not unusual that year; it was administrative survival.
The watermarked paper is a cut above much provincial Notgeld, which was often printed on whatever stock was available. The countersignatures of the Oberbürgermeister and the Stadtpfleger — the municipal treasurer — were a legal formality required to give the notes standing as obligations of the city.
The entire series was rendered worthless within weeks by the Rentenmark stabilization of November 1923.