500 000 Mark

Sonneberg issued this 500,000 Mark note during the summer of 1923, when Reichsbank currency was depreciating faster than it could be printed and distributed. Municipal treasuries across Thuringia were forced to produce their own emergency money — Notgeld — simply to meet payroll and local commercial demand. Sonneberg, a town whose economy ran heavily on toy manufacturing and glass exports, had no shortage of practical motivation to keep workers paid in something exchangeable.

Locally printed Notgeld at this denomination is far more perishable than its city-printed Serienscheine predecessors — issued out of necessity rather than collector appeal, it circulated hard and was rarely saved.