10.000 Kronen

The Oesterreichisch-ungarische Bank issued this note in the final year of the Habsburg monarchy's existence — a detail that gives it an almost documentary quality. The 10,000 Kronen was the highest denomination the joint bank ever produced, authorized as wartime expenditures drained the empire's fiscal reserves and inflation made smaller notes inadequate for large transactions. The Austro-Hungarian Krone had already lost the bulk of its prewar purchasing power by the time this note entered circulation.

After the armistice, successor states — Czechoslovakia, Austria, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and others — each handled the common currency differently, stamping, overstamping, or withdrawing notes as they asserted separate monetary authority. Many P#25 notes were stamped for use in the new Austrian republic before being demonetized during the catastrophic inflation of the early 1920s.