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500 000 000 000 Mark Rheinfelden
| Issuer | Stadtgemeinde Rheinfelden (Baden) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Central rectangular vignette framed by scrollwork guilloche borders, bearing the denomination "Fünfhundert Milliarden" in bold letterpress, the municipal arms of Rheinfelden (a lion rampant on a shield) at centre, and the serial number in red. Five-pointed stars appear in the upper and lower-left corners. Marginal panels carry historical annotations about Rheinfelden, with the denomination "500 Milliarden" repeated in each corner. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | ·Rheinfelden· Badens jüngste Stadtgemeinde Fünfhundert Milliarden |
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| Comments |
Rheinfelden's half-trillion Mark note was issued during the most acute phase of the Weimar hyperinflation, when municipal and district authorities across Germany were authorized to produce their own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to keep local commerce functioning. By late 1923, the Reichsbank could not print fast enough, and towns like Rheinfelden filled the gap with whatever their local printers could manage. Krauseneck was a small commercial printing house, not a security printer, and it shows.
The denomination itself is the artifact. Five hundred billion Marks on a locally produced sheet from a Baden border town tells you more about the collapse of the German monetary system in October–November 1923 than most textbooks do.