20 Heller Purgstall

Purgstall an der Erlauf is a small market town in Lower Austria, and this 20 Heller note is a product of the postwar Notgeld wave that swept through Austrian municipalities between 1919 and 1921. With the Habsburg monetary system in collapse and the new Republic of Austria unable to supply sufficient small change, local governments were legally permitted to issue their own emergency scrip. Purgstall's issue was printed locally by Rudolf u. Fritz Radinger in nearby Scheibbs — a reminder that this was genuinely provincial currency, not a collectible series dressed up for the philatelic trade.

Three signatories authenticated the issue: the mayor, the vice-mayor, and the municipal treasurer.