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500 000 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadt Leipzig (City of Leipzig) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Typeset note printed in black on cream paper, entirely text-based with no pictorial vignette, enclosed within a dense ornamental letterpress border of interlocking floral and foliate rosettes. The denomination 'Fünfhundert Milliarden Mark' is set in large blackletter script at centre, with the series letter and serial number in red at upper right. A manuscript signature of a city official appears below the issuing authority line, above the counterfeiting penalty clause in small roman type. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | GUTSCHEIN Serie M Gültig im Bezirke der Stadt Leipzig No 35487 Fünfhundert Milliarden Mark wird bei allen Kassen der Stadt Leipzig in Zahlung genommen Leipzig, den 6. November 1923 Der Rat der Stadt Leipzig Wer diesen Gutschein nachmacht oder verfälscht oder nachgemachte oder verfälschte Gutscheine sich verschafft und in Verkehr bringt, wird mit Zuchthaus nicht unter zwei Jahren bestraft. Poeschel & Trepte, Leipzig |
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| Comments |
Leipzig's municipal authority issued this 500-billion-Mark note during the terminal phase of the Weimar hyperinflation, when the Reichsbank could not print fast enough to meet demand and local governments across Germany were authorized to issue their own emergency currency — Notgeld — to keep commerce functioning at all. By October and November 1923, denominations that would have been unthinkable eighteen months earlier were routine.
Poeschel & Trepte were primarily a respected Leipzig fine-press printer, not a banknote specialist. The firm's involvement reflects how completely the crisis had dissolved the usual distinctions between security printing and commercial work.