50 000 000 Mark Gewerkschaft Sophia-Jacoba

Gewerkschaft Sophia-Jacoba was a coal mining cooperative operating the Sophia-Jacoba colliery in the lower Rhine coalfield. Like hundreds of German industrial firms in the autumn of 1923, it issued its own emergency currency — Notgeld — to pay workers when the Reichsbank could no longer supply denominations fast enough to keep pace with hyperinflation. By the time fifty-million-mark notes were necessary for routine wage packets, the currency was collapsing by the hour.

Hermann Schött A.G. in Rheydt handled a considerable volume of corporate Notgeld printing for Rhineland issuers during this period. The Merkelbach reference range 56–64 suggests this note belongs to a numbered series of nine consecutive issues, all from the same frantic weeks of late 1923 before the Rentenmark stabilization ended the need entirely.