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20 Heller Imbach
| Issuer | Gemeinde Imbach (Municipality of Imbach) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | The left half of the note is occupied by a fine line-engraved vignette of the Imbach church set amid trees and rolling hills, rendered in purple ink on plain paper. To the right, a ruled border frames the issuer text in Fraktur blackletter script, with the denomination numerals '20' flanking the word 'Heller' in bold type at the lower right panel. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The upper portion carries a four-line verse in Fraktur script attributed to Ernst Otto Karl, followed by the full legal title of the note and a paragraph of redemption conditions in smaller Fraktur text, all printed in purple on plain paper. The lower section bears the printed role titles 'Vize-Bürgermeister:', 'Bürgermeister:' and 'Gemeinderat:' above three handwritten official signatures. |
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| Comments |
Imbach is a tiny village in Lower Austria, administratively part of Rohrendorf bei Krems, and almost certainly had no business issuing its own emergency currency. Yet during the Notgeld wave that swept the former Habsburg territories after 1918, even settlements with a few hundred residents produced their own paper — partly from genuine small-change shortage, partly from the philatelic trade that had already made Notgeld collection fashionable by 1920.
By the time this 20 Heller note was issued, the acute coin shortage that originally justified Notgeld had largely passed. Most 1920 issues from Lower Austrian communes were printed speculatively for collectors rather than to meet any real monetary need.