500 000 Mark Kusel, Tuchfabrik Karl Friedrich Ehrenspeck

Kusel's textile sector was among the dozens of German industrial firms that printed emergency currency — Notgeld — during the hyperinflation peak of 1923, when the Reichsbank's own supply chain could not keep pace with denomination demands. A fabric manufacturer issuing half-million Mark notes is less strange than it sounds: local businesses were legally permitted to circulate their own scrip, redeemable at the issuing firm, as a practical workaround for the chronic cash shortage.

The Ehrenspeck mill was a mid-sized regional producer in the Palatinate wool trade. No major print house was involved — local production, which typically means thinner paper stock and cruder registration than contemporary municipal issues.