10 Heller Mitterhausleiten

Mitterhausleiten is a small village in Lower Austria, and this 10 Heller note is a product of the catastrophic coin shortage that gripped Austria following the First World War. Municipal and parish authorities across the country were authorized — or in many cases simply took it upon themselves — to issue their own emergency small-denomination paper, the so-called Notgeld, when metal coinage effectively vanished from circulation. Three signatories were required here: the mayor, the deputy mayor, and the managing council member, an unusually full complement of local authority lending legitimacy to what was essentially homemade money.