500 000 Mark

Solingen's half-million Mark note was printed locally by Kunstanstalt Hermann Rabitz, a commercial art printing firm in the city — exactly the kind of regional shop that municipal authorities across the Weimar Republic turned to when hyperinflation outpaced the Reichsbank's ability to supply adequate currency. By mid-1923, cities and towns were legally permitted to issue their own emergency money, Notgeld, to meet payroll and keep local commerce moving. The denominations escalated so fast that notes printed in one week were economically obsolete by the next.

Solingen, a city built on precision metalworking — knives, scissors, surgical instruments — had a functioning industrial base that made local scrip marginally trustworthy. That distinction mattered in 1923.