20 Heller Neukirchen am Walde

Austrian Kleingeldscheine of this type were issued by local municipalities beginning in 1919 to address a chronic shortage of small-denomination coinage — a problem that had been building since the war years and was still acute well into the early 1920s. Neukirchen am Walde, a small market town in Upper Austria, was one of hundreds of communities that authorized their own emergency fractional notes under this framework, with the Bürgermeister or a designated local official signing as guarantor of redemption.

The Jaksc/Pick reference suffix "a" indicates a distinct variety within the 20 Heller denomination for this issuer — worth checking against the "b" variant if one exists, as differences typically involve paper stock or overprint color rather than design changes.