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500 000 Mark Kreis Arnsberg
| Issuer | Kreisausschuss des Kreises Arnsberg |
|---|---|
| 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 | F. W. Becker, Arnsberg, Germany |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Plain beige paper, unprinted, showing the blind embossed dry seal impression from the obverse visible in the right margin. The obverse text shows through the thin paper as a mirror-image ghosting across the entire surface, with no additional design elements on this side. |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Blind embossed dry seal (Trockenstempel) of the Landrat of Arnsberg, applied to the left margin of the obverse. |
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| Comments |
Kreis Arnsberg's half-million mark note belongs to the frantic summer of 1923, when German municipal and district authorities were printing emergency currency — Notgeld — faster than the Reichsbank could devalue the underlying mark. The Kreisausschuss, the elected district committee, had legal authority to authorize such issues as a local administrative body, though the economic logic behind any fixed denomination above 100,000 marks had a shelf life measured in weeks.
F. W. Becker was a local Arnsberg printer, not a security printing house. The embossed dry seal substituted for the kind of intaglio or watermark protection a proper banknote would carry — entirely typical for district-level Notgeld of this period, where administrative legitimacy mattered more than counterfeiting deterrence given how quickly the notes became worthless.