2 Schillings Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Issued during Austria's First Republic, this coin commemorates the 175th anniversary of Mozart's birth in Salzburg. The timing was awkward at best — 1931 placed Austria squarely in the grip of the Great Depression, the banking system was months away from the catastrophic collapse of the Creditanstalt, and a commemorative silver issue was an odd priority for a government barely holding its finances together. Unsurprisingly, circulation was limited and hoarding common.

The .640 fineness was already a concession from the purer silver of earlier Austrian issues, a quiet acknowledgment of fiscal strain that the government had no interest in advertising.