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50 000 Mark August-Thyssen-Hütte
| Issuer | August-Thyssen-Hütte, Gewerkschaft, Hamborn-Rhein |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Mark (1914-1924) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Olive-brown letterpress on plain paper within a multi-rule guilloche border; a central rectangular vignette in fine engraved style presents an allegorical female figure — winged and helmeted in the manner of Mercury — holding a caduceus and resting one hand on a terrestrial globe, flanked by four circular '50000' denomination panels. Below the central vignette, a text panel states the note's purpose in relation to the Rhine-Westphalian industrial wage agreement. The denomination '50000 MARK' is repeated vertically on both lateral margins. |
| Reverse lettering | 50000 GUTSCHEIN 50000 50000 MARK AUSGEGEBEN ZUR DURCHFÜHRUNG DER LOHN- ABKOMMEN IM RHEIN.-WESTF.-INDUSTRIEBEZIRK |
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| Comments |
Notgeld issued by August-Thyssen-Hütte in 1923 occupies a specific and well-documented corner of the German inflation emergency currency story. The Thyssen works at Hamborn were among the largest steelmaking operations in the Ruhr, and during the hyperinflation peak, major industrial concerns routinely issued their own denominated scrip to pay workers when Reichsbank notes simply could not be printed fast enough to keep pace with collapsing purchasing power. This note was payable by the company itself, not by any municipal or banking authority — the employer, in effect, became the issuer of last resort.
50,000 Mark sounds extraordinary, but by mid-1923 it represented a fraction of a day's wage.