20 Heller Freinberg

Freinberg is a tiny rural commune in Upper Austria, and this 20 Heller note is exactly the kind of hyperlocal emergency scrip that flooded the Austrian countryside between 1919 and 1921. The collapse of the Habsburg monetary system left municipalities scrambling to fill a coin vacuum — small denominations had effectively vanished from circulation, hoarded or melted down, and village councils were legally empowered under Austrian law to issue their own Notgeld to keep local commerce moving.

Bürgermeister J. Neuhinger's signature is the sole guarantor here. No banking infrastructure, no reserve backing — just the municipality's word.