5 Groschen voucher, Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe, 1947

Twenty-seven years after Vienna printed fifty-Heller notes because shops could not give change, its transport undertaking printed five-Groschen vouchers for the same reason.

In 1947 Vienna was divided into four occupation sectors, the schilling had been reintroduced in 1945 and cut back again in the currency reform of December 1947, and coin was once again scarce. A tram conductor who could not give change could not sell a ticket. So the Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe issued numbered vouchers, redeemable only against fares, with an instruction printed on the face that is worth reading twice: passengers who cannot have the exact fare ready must not leave the car when changing money, and are obliged to accept vouchers in change.

That is the whole mechanism of emergency money in two sentences, written for a tram platform - a promise of future service standing in for coin, made compulsory in the small area where the issuer has authority.