Catalog
1000 Gulden
| Issuer | Gemeinde Stadt Wien / Banco Zettel's Haupt-Kasse |
|---|---|
| Year | 1796 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Typeset note with letterpress printing throughout. The denomination "1000" appears in a decorative cartouche at top centre, with Gothic script reading "Das ist Tausend Gulden Wiener-Stadt Banco-Zettel" in the central panel. Ornamental borders frame the note, with manuscript signatures and a serial number in ink at the base. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Das ist Tausend Gulden Wiener-Stadt Banco-Zettel von Einer Stadt Wien Tausend Gulden Banco Zettel's Haupt-Kasse 1000 |
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| Comments |
The Banco Zettel — formally the Wiener Stadtbank — issued these large-denomination notes under municipal rather than imperial authority, a jurisdictional arrangement that had grown increasingly strained by the 1790s. By 1796, Austria was financing its campaigns against revolutionary France through aggressive paper issuance, and the Stadtbank's notes were being absorbed into a monetary system already showing serious inflationary pressure. The imperial Banco-Zettel series and the municipal notes circulated side by side, to considerable public confusion.
At 1000 Gulden, this was not a note that passed through ordinary hands. High-denomination issues of this period served primarily wholesale merchant transactions and state financial transfers. The 1811 Bankalzettel devaluation — which reduced outstanding paper to one-fifth face value — would have wiped most surviving examples of this series from economic relevance entirely.