10 Heller Retz

Retz is a small wine-producing town in Lower Austria, and its 1920 Heller notgeld belongs to the enormous wave of municipal emergency currency that flooded Austria following the collapse of the Habsburg economy. The central government simply could not supply enough small-denomination coinage to meet everyday needs, and hundreds of towns printed their own. Retz printed locally — unusual only in that many comparable municipalities outsourced to Vienna printers rather than manage the process themselves.

Heller denominations were already economically marginal by 1920, with inflation accelerating fast enough to make them obsolete within a year or two of issue.