20 Heller

Sankt Aegidi is a small rural commune in the Innviertel district of Upper Austria, and this 20 Heller Notgeld was issued in 1920 as part of the postwar small-change crisis that pushed hundreds of Austrian municipalities to print their own emergency currency. The collapse of the Habsburg monetary system left ordinary commerce effectively stranded — coins had been hoarded or melted, and the central authorities were in no position to supply the provinces with adequate fractional currency.

Signed by Bürgermeister M. Stuhlberger, whose tenure gave the note its legal standing under local authority rather than any banking institution. Municipal Notgeld of this period was typically redeemable in bulk by the issuing commune and withdrawn within months — surviving examples owe their existence almost entirely to collector demand, which was already active during the Notgeld issues themselves.