20 Heller

Austrian Gemeinde (municipal) notgeld of this period was issued in response to a nationwide coin shortage that persisted well after the armistice — the wartime metal drain never fully reversed, and small denominations simply disappeared from circulation. Hundreds of Lower Austrian municipalities printed their own emergency pfennig-range fractional notes between 1919 and 1922, Rabenstein among them.

These local issues were technically valid only within the issuing municipality, though in practice enforcement was impossible. Many were redeemed in bulk and pulped; survivors tend to come from collector sets assembled during the notgeld craze of the early 1920s rather than from actual circulation wear.