500 thousand marks

As inflation and the intensive circulation of money escalated in 1922, it became apparent that the banknotes issued by the Reichsbank were unable to meet their purpose. A way out of the situation was sought through the production of replacement money. One form of replacement money was vouchers created based on the debt papers of various financial institutions and company payment cheques. With the ever-increasing costs of materials and production, it made perfect sense for issuers to use their stocks of payment order forms. Cheque forms were reworked and adapted to the new function in a simple way. The denomination was printed in numerals and letters, while horizontal bars were used to overprint redundant parts of the text or entry field. Sometimes, however, hand-written vouchers could also be used. They were numbered, dated, and bore the stamps and signatures of those in charge of issuance. The first examples of this replacement money were issued in the autumn of 1922 and continued to circulate until the end of the hyperinflation, sometimes even reprinted from thousands of marks to billions of marks until late autumn 1923. The featured copy, dated 24 August 1923, and stamped by the Deposit Bank at the German Bank in Kołobrzeg, represents a machine-made variety printed on the cheque form of the Kołobrzeg branch of Bank Słupski Spółka Akcyjna. At the place of entry of the amount to be paid to the bearer of the cheque, the nominal value of the voucher was printed in words. The same denomination, but expressed in numerals, was placed in the upper right-hand corner of the cheque. The field in which the beneficiary's name was originally to be entered was embossed with a decorative horizontal ornament. Although its denomination, 500,000 marks, may come as a surprise, it was among the lower ones used at the time. In fact, banknotes and replacement money with denominations of 1, 3 and 5 million marks were in common circulation. Mieszko Pawłowski