Monday, January 12, 2009

If it were only good today...

50millionmarknote

This is a 50 million mark bank note from Germany. At today's rate of exchange, that equals $34,196,683.44 in U.S. dollars.

But this is a Reichsbanknote issued in September, 1923, when German paper money was more valuable for burning than for spending because of hyperinflation in the wake of the collapse of the German economy.

According to Wikipedia, hyperinflation in Germany reached the point where the Weimar government's Reichsbank issued banknotes as large as 100 trillion marks and postage stamps with a face value of 50 billion marks.

When the Reichbank took to printing bank notes denominations in the millions of marks, they didn't even bother to print anything on the reverse side.

Let's hope things never get that bad here.

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