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 Mark
| Issuer | Werdau, City of |
|---|---|
| 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 | Green letterpress-printed Notgeld coupon on cream paper, with an elaborate guilloche border incorporating floral and rosette medallion ornaments at each corner and along the edges. The denomination "Fünfhunderttausend Mark" is set in large Gothic blackletter script across the centre, above a pale red underprint numeral "500000", with multi-line validity and payment text in smaller Gothic type surrounding it. Three manuscript signatures appear below the issuing authority lines, dated Werdau, 7 August 1923, with the numeral "500000" repeated in the lower guilloche panel. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Wer Gutscheine nachmacht oder verfälscht oder nachgemachte oder verfälschte sich verschafft und in Verkehr bringt wird mit Zuchthaus nicht unter zwei Jahren bestraft. 500000 500000 (Translation: Anyone who imitates or falsifies vouchers or procures them imitated or falsified and brings them in circulation is punished with imprisonment for not less than two years) |
| 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 |
Werdau was a mid-sized Saxon textile town, and like hundreds of German municipalities in 1923, it was forced into the notgeld business not by choice but by necessity — the Reichsbank simply could not print fast enough to keep pace with hyperinflation. By the time 500,000-mark denominations were circulating as municipal emergency currency, that sum would buy roughly a loaf of bread, if the date was right and the bakers hadn't repriced by morning.
The watermarked paper is worth noting — most Kleinnotgeld of this period used whatever stock was available, and the presence of a security feature at this denomination suggests the city drew on pre-existing paper inventory rather than purpose-ordered stock.