100 Mark Forum-Scheck

Forum Außenhandelsgesellschaft was the East German state's mechanism for extracting hard currency from its own citizens and foreign visitors. These "Forum-Schecks" were sold abroad at face value in Western currency — one West German Mark bought one Forum Mark — and could be spent at Intershop stores stocked with Western goods unavailable through normal retail channels. The implicit exchange rate was punishing; the official rate bore no relationship to reality.

The 1979 series was printed in quantities high enough to confirm how aggressively the GDR pushed the scheme through the late Brezhnev years. Possession of Western currency outside the Forum system was, simultaneously, a criminal offense.