500 000 000 Mark

Regierungsbezirk Trier und Provinz Birkenfeld was one of dozens of regional German authorities that resorted to printing their own emergency currency — Notgeld — during the hyperinflationary collapse of 1923. By the time this 500-million-mark denomination was issued, the Reichsmark had deteriorated to the point where notes of this face value were functionally small change. Schaar & Dathe in Trier, a local commercial printer pressed into monetary service, produced the series.

Provinz Birkenfeld's administrative anomaly is worth noting: it was a Prussian exclave entirely surrounded by non-Prussian territory, governed jointly with the Trier district precisely because standalone administration was impractical.