20 Heller, Gemeinde Wartberg an der Krems, 1920
Gutschein der Gemeinde Wartberg a. d. Krems ueber Zwanzig Heller
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00311
- Series year
- 1920
- Actually issued
- 1920
- mayor
- Josef Riedler certain
Set in type on the note.
- 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
- 83.2 × 58 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneyUpper AustriaLocal designTown viewFirst Austrian Republic
The type
- Type
- 20 Heller, Gemeinde Wartberg an der Krems, 1920
- Printer
- Emil Prietzel, Steyr
- Rarity
- very common
Inscriptions
Die Gemeinde Wartberg a. d. Krems haftet fuer die Verbindlichkeit mit ihrem gesamten Gemeinde-Vermoegen. Der Buergermeister: Josef Riedler.
The commune of Wartberg an der Krems stands behind this obligation with its entire communal property. The mayor: Josef Riedler.
Gueltig bis 31. Dez. 1921.
Valid until 31 December 1921.
Symbology
- The parish church
- Wartberg's church on its rise, drawn in a circle on the reverse. The one building in the village anybody outside it would recognise.
- Valid to the end of 1921
- A year later than almost every other note here. Either the commune was in no hurry to find the cover, or it never expected to be asked - by the end of 1921 a Heller was worth so little that redeeming the note cost more than the note.
- Drawn ornament
- The frame is made of hand-drawn dots, curls and leaf forms. It defends against nothing; it is there because a note ought to have a border, and this is what one looks like when an illustrator rather than an engraver draws it.
- One signature
- Only the mayor signs, and in type. Wartberg is a small enough place that the office and the man were effectively the same thing.
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.
Wartberg an der Krems is a village in the Kremstal, south of Linz on the road to the Pyhrn pass. Its note is the longest-lived in this group: valid until 31 December 1921, a full year after most Austrian communal paper had been called in and well after the government had ordered the practice stopped.
It was drawn by Emil Prietzel of Steyr, who also did Leonfelden's set, and it shows: the same hand-lettered display face, the same violet single-colour printing, the same way of building a border out of drawn dots and tendrils rather than engraved line. The only signature is the mayor's, Josef Riedler, set in type.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 20 Heller, Gemeinde Wartberg an der Krems, 1920 in the collection.
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