500 000 000 Mark

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.