10 Heller Altenmarkt im Pongau

One of thousands of Austrian municipal Notgeld notes produced in the post-WWI period, when the collapse of the Habsburg monetary system and acute coin shortages forced individual towns and villages to print their own small-denomination emergency money. The Heller had been the lowest subdivision of the Austro-Hungarian Krone, and by 1920 metal coinage in those values had effectively vanished from everyday commerce — shopkeepers simply could not make change.

Altenmarkt im Pongau, a small market town in Salzburg province, issued this 10 Heller note under that pressure. Most Austrian municipal Notgeld of this period was redeemed and destroyed within a year or two of issue, as the Krone itself collapsed into hyperinflation by 1921–1922.