As is fit when you do start a banknote collection, quite soon you are seeing your first inflation notes .. for me it started with the German 1923 inflation notes ..

Those notes were changed so frequently that they were only printed on one side !

Nowadays probably the most well known is the 100 Trillion dollars note from Zimbabwe .. Always nice to show it to people to expose what happens when the money system  goes mad ..

more interesting is how do you live in a place with such an inflation. I recently stumbled on a few pictures showing life in Zimbabwe around 2008

You can find more pictures like this at  http://www.myinterestingfiles.com/2008/09/money-in-zimbabwe.html

Strangely enough, it seems that it is not the highest denomination for a banknote . Seems like the winner is a banknote from the 1946 inflation in Hungary.

This banknote (pick 137) has a value of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Pengo , but the value is not written with zeros.

It was never issued and thus is quite rare (and expensive)  to buy. And because of this rarity, it also seems that there are quite a few fake of this one in the market

It was not always the case that it was rare as can be seen in this picture

I was quite curious about this whole ‘German Vampire Banknote’ thing, so I decided to do some research. I found that picks 70, 71, and 72, which feature a male portrait by Albrecht Durer are all considered to be German Vampire Banknotes. When looking at the picture some people see a vampire sucking on the neck of the young man. This has been interpreted by some as a representation of the French sucking the blood of the Germans through the reparations of World War I. I have tried to show this in the image below:

Germany p72 10000 Marks from 1922 (vampire banknote)

I’m not into Regional issues or Specialized issues from any country, but I do have a few of each in my collection. Most recently I have purchased a 1000 Mark banknote, printed by Germany but circulated in Lithuania in 1918. I do believe that this is the highest denomination for that series, though this particular specimen is in F (fine) condition. This cost me $19.50.

This picture is of the back, while the face of the banknotes features Mercury and a youth in armor at right.

German East Africa, located on the coast of east-central Africa between British East Africa (now Kenya) and Portuguese East Africa (now Mozambique) used to produce ivory and slaves, as chief exports, prior to German control in 1884. Following German control this area exported primarily sisal, coffee, and rubber. German colonial domination ended with World War I. Control of most of the territory passed to Great Britain under a League of Nations mandate. However, during their rule the Germans did print a few series of paper money. Every series following the first was simply paper with a text and a plain border pattern, and make for very boring banknotes. However, the first issue featured everything from lions to Kaiser Wilhelm II in uniform. Unfortunately the Kaiser notes are pretty expensive, however, the 5 and 10 Rupien banknotes, featuring lions and the port of Dar es Salam respectively, can still be found for under $75 from time to time, though even these are getting rare. This is why I feel fortunate to have purchased p2 for $56.99. Now I have the first two of the series …

German East Africa: 10 Rupien from 1905 (pick 2)

I have recently come across this banknote. I have taken a look to figure out where this banknote is from (everything points to Germany), but I have not been able to find it in the catalogs. Does anyone know what pick number this paper money is? Hope to hear from you soon!