20 Kronen

The Oesterreichisch-ungarische Bank's 1914 series was issued just as the Austro-Hungarian war economy began cannibalizing its own monetary system. Within months of issue, silver and gold coins had vanished from circulation entirely, hoarded or requisitioned, leaving the population dependent on paper at every denomination level. Notes like this one absorbed enormous circulation pressure they were never designed to sustain.

Pfeiffer and Rössler were the Bank's in-house design team responsible for the entire prewar series — the printing was handled domestically by the Staatsdruckerei in Vienna, which gave Austria-Hungary unusual self-sufficiency compared to smaller states relying on foreign security printers.