Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
500 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Stadtgemeinde Singen-Hohentwiel |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Local banknote |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | The obverse is printed in orange-red and black on white paper, with a dense geometric guilloche underprint filling the background. Large Fraktur script across the upper half renders the denomination 'Fünfhundert Millionen Mark' as a dominant typographic vignette, beneath which a three-line text declares payment by the Stadtgemeinde Singen-Hohentwiel to the bearer. A line-engraved vignette in the lower centre presents a frontal elevation of a large civic or industrial building, identified as the Scheffelhaus, flanked by smaller redemption and validity clauses in two side panels; a circular municipal seal with a lion device appears to the left. The bottom margin carries the serial number and the motto 'Behalt diesen Schein, so ersteht das Heim!' in bold Fraktur. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in black only on plain white paper and is divided into three vertical panels by ruled borders. The central panel carries a bold woodcut-style vignette of the Hohentwiel volcanic rock with its ruined fortress visible at the summit, a large fir tree in the foreground, and two small figures with a horse on a snow-covered path below. The left and right flanking panels contain the split motto in large Fraktur lettering, the whole composition executed in an Expressionist graphic manner typical of German Notgeld art of the early 1920s. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
Singen am Hohentwiel was a modest industrial town in Baden, and like hundreds of German municipalities in late 1923, it was forced to print its own emergency currency — Notgeld — simply to meet payroll. The Reichsbank's note production had collapsed under the weight of hyperinflation; by the time this 500-Million-Mark denomination was issued, that sum would barely cover a loaf of bread for a day or two before prices moved again.
Municipal issues from smaller Baden towns are genuinely less common in collector inventories than the heavily documented Berlin or Rhineland series. Singen's output was functional, not commemorative — printed for use, not posterity.