500 000 Mark Nordmark-Lotterie overprint

Husum's 500,000 Mark notgeld belongs to the chaotic summer of 1923, when Reichsbank denominations were becoming obsolete faster than they could be printed and municipal authorities across Germany were authorizing their own emergency issues to keep local commerce moving. This particular note took a shortcut: rather than commissioning entirely new printing, the city applied an overprint to existing Nordmark-Lotterie stock — a lottery ticket repurposed as currency, which tells you something about the desperation of the moment.

The three-signature authentication (Fuchs, Hlesch, and J.J. Roseuler) and official stamps were the only mechanisms standing between this and outright forgery. Max Böttcher's design credit almost certainly predates the monetary use entirely.