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 | Stadt Neuss (City of Neuss) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| 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 | L. Schwann, Düsseldorf, Germany |
| 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 | Dark green and black letterpress note with an elaborate geometric guilloche border incorporating repeated circular vignettes inscribed 'STADT NEUSS' and the denomination '500 000 MARK' along the margins. At the top centre, the crowned heraldic arms of Neuss flanked by the Gothic blackletter legends 'Stadt' and 'Neuß'. A central text panel in Gothic script states the obligation of the City of Neuss to pay the bearer 500,000 Mark at its municipal offices, dated 'Neuß, den 1. August 1923', with the Oberbürgermeister's manuscript signature below. The denomination '500 000' appears in large bold numerals within a dark cartouche at the foot of the note, flanked by the legend 'Fünfhunderttausend' on each side. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Stadt Neuß 500 000 L. Schwann · Düsseldorf |
| 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 |
Neuss issued this 500,000 Mark note during the summer of 1923, when municipal and regional authorities across Germany were legally empowered to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — to compensate for the Reich's catastrophic inability to keep usable denominations in circulation. By mid-1923, inflation was accelerating so fast that a note of this face value could lose most of its purchasing power within days of issue.
L. Schwann was a well-established Düsseldorf printing firm with a commercial rather than security-printing background. That distinction matters: these notes were produced efficiently, not securely.