100 Schilling Kärnten

This piece belongs to Austria's long-running provincial commemorative series, each issue honoring one of the nine federal states. The Kärnten (Carinthia) edition marks the 1976 anniversary of the 1920 Carinthian plebiscite, in which the region's population voted — against prevailing expectations — to remain within Austria rather than join the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The vote was the only post-WWI plebiscite in the region that went in Austria's favor.

The .640 silver fineness is characteristic of Austria's commemorative coinage from this decade, chosen to keep production costs manageable as silver prices climbed through the 1970s.