500 000 Mark Gütersloh

Gütersloh issued this 500,000 Mark note during the acute phase of Germany's 1923 hyperinflation, when municipal and commercial authorities across the country were authorized to produce their own emergency currency — Notgeld — to cover a chronic shortage of legal tender that had been rendered nearly worthless by runaway price increases. By the time denominations this large were being printed, the Reichsbank's own presses could barely keep pace with demand, and local issuers frequently contracted regional printers on short notice, which accounts for the wide variation in print quality seen across Gütersloh's higher-denomination pieces.