50 000 000 Mark

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.