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 | Stadtrat Landau (Pfalz) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Single-sided letterpress Notgeld on cream paper, framed by a geometric guilloche border of wavy and interlocking ring patterns in brown. The central field carries the Landau municipal coat of arms — a shield bearing a fortified tower — as a pale grey underprint behind the large gothic-script denomination '500000 Mark' and the spelled-out value 'Fünfhunderttausend'. An inked circular official seal of the Stadtrat Landau (Pfalz) appears at lower left, with the facsimile signature of the Bürgermeister and the issue date 'Landau, den 1. August 1923' at lower right. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse is unprinted, presenting a plain cream paper surface; faint show-through of the obverse text and vignette is visible as a mirror impression, consistent with the thin single-sided letterpress production typical of German municipal Notgeld of the hyperinflation period. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| 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 |
Landau in der Pfalz issued this 500,000 Mark note at the peak of the Weimar hyperinflation spiral, when municipal and district authorities across Germany were printing their own Notgeld simply to keep local commerce from seizing up entirely. The Reichsbank could not supply denominations fast enough — by mid-1923, notes were becoming worthless faster than they could be physically printed and distributed.
Stadtrat issues like this one were technically illegal tender outside the issuing municipality, which meant the inflation problem and the liquidity problem hit simultaneously at the local level.