50 Heller, Gemeinde Oepping, 1920
Notgeld der Gemeinde Oepping
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00329
- Series year
- 1920
- Actually issued
- 1920
- mayor
- Johann Stoebich (Johann Stöbich) certain
Set in type on the note rather than signed.
- 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
- 98.7 × 74.8 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
- Themes
- NotgeldEmergency moneyUpper AustriaLocal designWoodcut designFirst Austrian Republic
The type
- Type
- 50 Heller, Gemeinde Oepping, 1920
- Printer
- Not established
- Rarity
- very common
Inscriptions
Die Gemeinde Oepping gibt laut Beschluss vom 11. Juli 1920 Gutscheine im Gesamtbetrage von 45.000 Kronen aus und haftet fuer die Verbindlichkeit, diesen Gutschein bis Widerruf bei der Gemeindekasse in gesetzlichem Bargelde einzuloesen. Oepping, am 11. Juli 1920. Der Buergermeister: Johann Stoebich.
Under the resolution of 11 July 1920 the commune of Oepping issues vouchers to a total of 45,000 Kronen and undertakes to redeem this voucher in legal tender at the parish treasury until called in. Oepping, 11 July 1920. The mayor: Johann Stoebich.
Symbology
- Bis Widerruf
- "Until called in" - no date. Most communes named the day their money would die; Oepping left it open, which is either confidence or an unwillingness to commit.
- Lettering cut into the block
- The denomination and the issuer are drawn, not typeset, and they curve to follow the shape of the design. The note is a single woodcut with words in it rather than a form with a picture added.
- The village on its ridge
- Oepping strung out along the high ground with its church at one end, printed in one red-brown ink across the whole face.
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.
Oepping is in the Muehlviertel, close to the Bohemian border. Its council resolved on 11 July 1920 to issue forty-five thousand Kronen of vouchers, and - unlike almost every other note here - named no expiry date at all: redemption at the parish treasury bis Widerruf, until called in.
The design is a single red-brown woodcut printed edge to edge: the village along its ridge, the church tower on the left, the hills behind, and an arc of hand-cut lettering across the top right reading 50 Heller Notgeld der Gem. Oepping. Everything is drawn, including the letters.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 50 Heller, Gemeinde Oepping, 1920 in the collection.
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