| Obverse description |
Printed in violet-purple on cream paper, the note is enclosed within a decorative scrollwork border. A central oval vignette shows a farmer sowing seed in a field beneath a radiant sun, flanked on each side by wheat sheaf motifs. The denomination '10 Heller' appears twice in Gothic blackletter type at lower left and lower right, with two-line verse inscriptions in the upper corners reading 'Heilige Erde, gib uns Dein Brot' and 'Verläßt Du uns nicht, hat's keine Not'. |
| Reverse description |
Printed in violet-purple on cream paper within a decorative scrollwork border, the reverse carries the issuing authority inscription 'Gutschein der Ortschaften Schattleiten u. Schweinsegg bei Ternberg, O.-Öst.' at the top, flanked by the numeral '10' on each side. The denomination 'Zehn Heller' is set in large Gothic blackletter script across the centre, bracketed by monogram devices. Below, bilingual text blocks in small Gothic type explain the purpose of the note and the committee's liability, flanked by a small vignette of a fire station or alpine building, with a facsimile signature 'Th. Ziebermayr' for the committee, and the printer's imprint 'Emil Prietzel, Steyr' at the foot. |
One of the countless municipal emergency issues printed across Austria during the First World War, this note was produced when small-denomination coinage effectively vanished from circulation as metal was redirected to the war effort. The Gemeinden of Schattleiten and Schweinsegg — two tiny rural settlements near Ternberg in the Steyr-Land district — pooled their authority to issue jointly, a practical arrangement that was unusual even by the improvised standards of wartime Notgeld.
Emil Prietzel operated as a local commercial printer in Steyr, handling bread-and-butter trade work. Notgeld commissions like this one kept such shops busy from roughly 1916 onward.