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500 000 000 Mark
| Issuer | Magistrat der Stadt Breslau |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 500 000 000 Mark (500 000 000) |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Typeset emergency note (Notgeld) printed in dark green and salmon tones on a fine guilloche underprint, with the denomination "500" in large Gothic script at upper left and "Fünfhundert Millionen Mark" in bold blackletter across the centre. To the right, a rectangular vignette presents the elaborately engraved civic arms of Breslau surmounted by a crown and flanked by ornamental scrollwork, with the numeral "500 000 000" below it in a dark panel; at lower left, a circular seal of the Magistrat zu Breslau accompanies two manuscript facsimile signatures above the issuing authority line "DER MAGISTRAT" and the place-date "Breslau, im Oktober 1923". A serial number in red appears in a cyan-tinted box at upper right, and the vertical side panels carry the inscription "500 MILLIONEN" in letterpress. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
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| Signature(s) | Wagner and Matthes |
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| Comments |
Breslau municipal authorities issued this 500-million-mark note during the peak weeks of the German hyperinflation, when denominations that would have seemed hallucinatory eighteen months earlier had become mundane. German cities and counties were legally permitted to issue emergency currency — Notgeld — when the Reichsbank could not physically supply enough notes to meet wage and trade demands. Breslau was one of dozens of Silesian municipalities that ran their own printing operations rather than wait for central distribution.
Grass, Barth & Comp., operating under the W. Friedrich imprint, was a local commercial printing house pressed into producing what was effectively monetary paper. The dual signatures of Wagner and Matthes authenticate the issuance authority.