50 Heller, Stadtgemeinde Moedling, 1920
Kassenschein der Stadtgemeinde Moedling ueber Fuenfzig Heller
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00300
- Series year
- 1920
- Actually issued
- 1920
- deputy_mayor
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- mayor
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- chief_treasurer
- not read unread
Printed as a facsimile; the engraver's reduction has lost the letter forms.
- Grade
- UNC (IBNS)
As issued: full body, square corners, bright unfaded ink and no fold through the design. Estimated from the 600 dpi archival scan, which shows folds, soiling and edge condition but not paper crispness, pinholes, pressing or small repairs.
- Estimated value
- $7 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
- Dimensions
- 85 × 63.5 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneyLower AustriaMunicipal financeTown viewFirst Austrian Republic
The type
- Type
- 50 Heller, Stadtgemeinde Moedling, 1920
- Printer
- Not established; the vignette is signed F. Wild
- Rarity
- very common
Inscriptions
Zur Linderung der Kleingeldnot gibt die Gemeinde Moedling fuer 100.000 Kronen Kassenscheine aus. Diese Kassenscheine lauten auf 50 Heller, sind unverzinslich und werden von der Gemeinde Moedling bis 31. August 1920 in Zahlung genommen und bis zu diesem Termin in gesetzlichem Bargelde eingeloest.
To relieve the shortage of small change the commune of Moedling issues 100,000 Kronen of treasury notes. These notes are denominated at 50 Heller, bear no interest, and will be accepted in payment by the commune of Moedling until 31 August 1920 and redeemed in legal tender by that date.
Die Stadtgemeinde Moedling haftet laut Gemeinderatsbeschlusses vom 10. April 1920 fuer die Einloesung dieses Scheines beim Stadtkammeramte.
Under the council resolution of 10 April 1920 the town of Moedling stands behind the redemption of this note at the municipal treasury.
Symbology
- St. Othmar
- Moedling's parish church, fifteenth-century and set on a terrace above the old town, captioned on the note. It is the building everyone arriving from Vienna saw first.
- The lion of Moedling
- The town arms on the reverse: a lion on a field of bars. Municipal arms do on communal scrip exactly what a national coat of arms does on a banknote - they assert that a corporation with a legal existence is behind the paper.
- 100,000 Kronen in 50-Heller notes
- Two hundred thousand pieces of paper for one town. The arithmetic on the reverse is the clearest measure in this collection of how completely small coin had vanished.
- Ober-Kaemmerer
- The third signatory is the chief treasurer, alongside mayor and deputy. A village needed two officers to issue money; a town of this size had a finance department.
What was happening
Austria in 1919 was a republic of six and a half million people left holding the currency of an empire of fifty. The Austro-Hungarian Bank was in liquidation, the peace treaties had cut the country off from most of its coal and much of its food, and small coin simply vanished: hoarded against worse to come, melted for the metal, or carried across the new frontiers where it bought more. Shops could not give change, and a country that cannot give change cannot trade.
So the communes printed their own. A council resolution, a local printer, a redemption date and the pledge of the commune's entire movable and immovable property - that was the whole legal apparatus behind several thousand separate issues of Heller notes between 1919 and 1921. Vienna tolerated it while it solved a real problem and moved to stop it in 1920, by which time the notes had found a second market: collectors would pay more than face value for a complete set, so a village could raise real money by printing money it hoped would never be presented. The artwork improved as the need receded.
Moedling is the first town south of Vienna, close enough to be a suburb and old enough not to behave like one. Its council resolved the issue on 10 April 1920, for a hundred thousand Kronen in fifty-Heller notes, to be accepted and redeemed by 31 August 1920.
The note is monochrome blue and puts two things on the face: the church of St. Othmar on its terrace above the town, and the town's arms - a lion on a barry field. Between them they are the whole argument for trusting it. Moedling was a district capital with a rateable base, and the note reads less like village scrip than like a small municipal bond that happens to be worth fifty Heller.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Heller, Stadtgemeinde Moedling, 1920 in the collection.
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