Catalog
1 Gulden
| Issuer | Wiener Stadt Banco |
|---|---|
| Year | 1800 |
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| Shape | Rectangular (hand cut) |
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| Obverse description | At centre, a crowned double-headed imperial eagle bearing the Austrian coat of arms on its breast, set within an ornate typographic border. A rectangular cartouche carrying the denomination appears above the eagle vignette, with the full text of the legal tender declaration rendered in period German blackletter typeface filling the body of the note. A handwritten serial number appears at the foot of the note. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Ein Guld ~ 1 Das iſt Ein Gúlden Wiener - Stadt Banco ~ Zettel Welcher in allen Kontributions – Kameral – und Banco – Kaſſen der hungariſch – böhmiſch – und öeſterreichiſchen Erblanden in allen Abgaben für Baares Geld, das iſt für Ein Gulden angenohmen wird. Wien den i ten Januar i800. v. Gr. St. Wien Banco Zettels Haupt Kaſse I . F . ~ EIN ~ GULD ~ Gr. S. Wien Banko Zettel f. Ein Gulden. Gr. St. Wien Banko Zettel p. Ein Gulden. |
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| Comments |
The Wiener Stadt Banco was not a central bank in any modern sense but a municipal credit institution dating to 1706, originally established to manage Viennese civic debt. By 1800 it had become the principal issuer of low-denomination paper currency for the Habsburg lands — a role it held uneasily, as public trust in its notes had already been shaken by decades of war financing and expanding issue volumes.
The embossed seal was the primary anti-counterfeiting measure, applied by hand press after printing. Within a decade of this note's issue, the catastrophic Bankozettel inflation of the Napoleonic years would reduce the real value of such gulden notes to a fraction of face — the 1811 state bankruptcy formally devalued all outstanding banco paper by 80 percent.