20 Heller Christofen

Christofen is a small village in the Vorarlberg region of western Austria. This 20 Heller note is a Notgeld — emergency small-change scrip issued by hundreds of Austrian municipalities after the First World War, when metal coinage disappeared from circulation almost entirely. The Gemeinde handled production locally; the official stamp was the only authentication measure considered necessary at that scale.

Heller-denomination Notgeld from Vorarlberg villages survives in collector hands far more often than it ever circulated — many issues were bought directly by German collectors even as they were printed, which inflated production runs and muddied any honest assessment of actual local use.