500 Mark overstamp on 10 Mark

Gera's decision to overstamp 10 Mark notes to a face value of 500 Mark is a direct artifact of the accelerating German inflation crisis of 1922, when municipal authorities across Thuringia scrambled to create emergency denominations faster than printing new stock allowed. Repurposing existing low-denomination paper was a practical solution — cheap, immediate, and legal under the Notgeld provisions that gave cities broad latitude to self-issue.

The overstamp itself is the document. What it records is not just a denomination change but the specific moment when the gap between printed value and purchasing reality became too large to ignore with new print runs alone.