20 Heller, Stadtgemeinde St. Poelten, 1919

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.

St. Poelten is the largest town in Lower Austria and issued early - its notes are dated 24 December 1919, months before most communes got round to it, and before the province did. The sums are stated plainly on the back: 75,000 Kronen of treasury notes, interest-free, accepted by the town until 30 June 1920 and exchanged for legal tender in that month. Both denominations in this collection are second printings.

These are working notes rather than collectors' pieces. There is no verse, no folk woodcut and no Alpine view: an engraved rosette, the town hall, a formula, three signatures, and the printer's name - Gutenberg of St. Poelten - along the bottom edge.