10 Heller Waidhofen an der Thaya

Waidhofen an der Thaya is a small market town in Lower Austria, and this 10 Heller note is a product of the Notgeld wave that swept Austria in 1920 as the newly truncated republic struggled with coin shortages and monetary disarray following the collapse of the Habsburg empire. Municipal authorities across the country filled the vacuum themselves. Four signatories on a piece of paper smaller than a matchbox — Bürgermeister, Vize-Bürgermeister, a managing councillor, and a finance officer — reflects how seriously even minor communes took the legal formality of local issue.