20 Heller Gilgenberg

Gilgenberg am Weilhart is a small market commune in Upper Austria, and like hundreds of similarly sized communities, it issued its own emergency paper money — Notgeld — during the acute coin shortage that gripped Austria from around 1916 onward. Wartime metal requisitions had effectively stripped small-denomination coinage from circulation, forcing local authorities to print their own substitutes. Stampfl & Comp. in nearby Braunau am Inn handled the physical production, which was common for smaller Upper Austrian communities who lacked access to major Vienna-based printers.

The designer credit to "v. Preen" is unusually specific for a rural commune issue of this kind — most village Notgeld went unsigned by any artistic hand.