50 Heller, Land Niederoesterreich, 1920
Kassenschein des Landes Niederoesterreich ueber fuenfzig Heller
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00305
- Series year
- 1920
- Actually issued
- 1920
- governor
- not read unread
Facsimile, captioned Landeshauptmann-Stellvertreter.
- landeshauptmann
- not read unread
Facsimile, captioned Landeshauptmann.
- finance_officer
- not read unread
Facsimile, captioned Finanzreferent.
- Grade
- AU (IBNS)
Bright; very light edge toning. About uncurrent: bright and unfolded, with light handling - a corner bump or a faint edge tone. Estimated from the 600 dpi archival scan, which cannot show paper crispness, pinholes, pressing or small repairs.
- Estimated value
- $5 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-26.
- Dimensions
- 95 × 67.4 mm (±1.1, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneyLower AustriaProvincial issueLandscapeFirst Austrian Republic
The type
- Type
- 50 Heller, Land Niederoesterreich, 1920
- Printer
- Druckerei der niederoesterreichischen Landesbahnen
- Rarity
- very common
Inscriptions
Zur Behebung der Kleingeldnot gibt das Land Niederoesterreich auf Grund des Landtagsbeschlusses vom 23. Juni 1920 Kassenscheine im Gesamtbetrage von weiteren drei Millionen Kronen aus. Die Kassenscheine, die unverzinslich sind, werden in der Zeit vom 15. bis 31. Dezember 1920 beim n.-oe. Landes-Obereinnehmeramte in Wien in gesetzlichem Bargelde eingeloest. Wien, im Juli 1920. Der n.-oe. Landesrat.
To relieve the shortage of small change, the province of Lower Austria issues treasury notes to a further total of three million Kronen under the provincial parliament's resolution of 23 June 1920. The notes bear no interest and will be redeemed in legal tender at the Lower Austrian chief revenue office in Vienna between 15 and 31 December 1920. Vienna, July 1920. The Lower Austrian provincial council.
Symbology
- The scene
- The face shows a turreted castle above its courtyard walls - one of the Danube-country castles the province was already selling to summer visitors.
- II. Auflage
- “Second printing”, set in the corners of the reverse. The province had already issued one run of these and needed more, which is the plainest evidence that the coin shortage was real and not merely an excuse to print collectables.
- Pledge of the whole provincial property
- The formula every Austrian emergency issue used, scaled up: where a village pledged its movable and immovable property, so did a province of a million and a half people. The wording is identical; the security behind it is not.
- Printed by the provincial railway
- The Landesbahnen press printed the money because it was the press the province owned. Almost nothing about these issues went out to tender.
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.
Lower Austria did at province scale what its villages were doing at parish scale, and did it with a balance sheet behind it. A resolution of the provincial parliament on 23 June 1920 authorised a further three million Kronen of treasury notes in 10, 20 and 50 Heller, pledged against the whole movable and immovable property of the province, redeemable at the provincial revenue office in Vienna in the last fortnight of December 1920. They were printed by the provincial railway's own press and every one in this series is marked II. Auflage - a second printing, because the first had not been enough.
The designs are the best argument for why people collected these. Instead of arms and formulae, the three notes show a herd being driven to water, a castle, and a wooded valley: the province advertising itself as a place worth visiting, on the money it printed because it had run out of coins.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Heller, Land Niederoesterreich, 1920 in the collection.
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