10 Heller Bischofstetten

Bischofstetten is a small Lower Austrian village that, like hundreds of other rural municipalities, issued its own emergency paper money — Notgeld — in the postwar years when small-denomination coins vanished almost entirely from circulation. The signed authority here is the Bürgermeister Riesinger, whose signature gave the note whatever local credibility it carried.

The print run of over twelve million for a village of this size is striking and almost certainly reflects wholesale production for collector distribution rather than genuine local need — a common practice by 1920, when the Notgeld market had become thoroughly commercialized.