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500 000 Marks
| Issuer | Stadtkasse Speyer (City of Speyer Notgeld, Bavaria) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Kreishauptstadt Speyer a. Rh. Notgeld. Fünfhunderttausend Mark zahlt die Stadtkasse Speyer dem Einlieferer dieses Scheines Speyer, den 27. Juli 1923. Das Bürgermeisteramt: Der Zeitpunkt, mit dem die Gültigkeit dieses Scheines abläuft wird öffentlich bekannt gegeben. |
| Reverse description | The entire reverse is occupied by a large intaglio-style vignette in dark olive tones, illustrating a Romantic scene of robed and crowned figures on a rocky riverbank with a Gothic cathedral silhouette in the background. The denomination in Gothic blackletter appears at upper left, the numeral 500000 at lower centre, and a two-line verse quotation runs along the bottom margin. |
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| Comments |
Speyer's municipal treasury issued this note at the absolute peak of German hyperinflation — by August 1923, half a million marks could barely cover a streetcar fare. Stadtkasse notgeld of this denomination existed because the Reichsbank simply could not produce and distribute currency fast enough to keep pace with the collapse; municipalities, utilities, and private firms all filled the void with emergency paper of wildly varying quality and legal standing.
Local printing at Speyer was common for this wave of notgeld, which is why paper quality and ink registration vary even within the same series. The Pfalz region issued an extraordinary volume of emergency notes during this period, most redeemed and pulped within weeks of issue.