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500 000 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadtkasse Buer i.W. (City of Buer) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 500 000 000 000 Mark (500 000 000 000) |
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| Obverse description | Printed in dark teal-green on a rose-brown guilloche underprint, the obverse bears a faint architectural vignette at centre. The denomination "Fünfhundert Milliarden Mk." is set in large blackletter script across the middle of the note, with the issuing authority legend "Gutschein der Stadt Buer i.W." along the top border and the numeral "500" printed vertically in bold along the right coupon strip. The date "den 25. Oktober 1923" appears at lower left alongside the municipal arms, with two manuscript signatures for "Der Magistrat" at lower right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Gutschein der Stadt Buer i.W. Fünfhundert Milliarden Mk. zahlt die Stadtkasse Buer dem Einlieferer dieses Gutscheines. Der Schein verliert seine Gültigkeit einen Monat nach Aufruf in den Buerschen Tageszeitungen. Buer i.W. Der Magistrat: den 25. Oktober 1923 500 Milliarden 500 |
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| Comments |
Buer was a mid-sized industrial city in Westphalia — absorbed into Gelsenkirchen in 1928 — and like hundreds of German municipalities in late 1923, its city treasury (Stadtkasse) was forced to print emergency currency simply to meet weekly payroll. The five-hundred-billion-Mark denomination places this squarely in the terminal weeks of the hyperinflation, when the Reichsbank's own presses could not keep pace and local authorities across Germany issued Notgeld under Reich authorization.
By November 1923, a single US dollar exchanged for roughly 4.2 trillion Marks. Notes of this face value had a purchasing life measured in days.