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20 Heller Sitzenberg
| Issuer | Gemeinde Sitzenberg (Municipality of Sitzenberg) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
| Type | Local banknote |
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| Obverse description | Printed in dark red on cream paper, the obverse centres on a detailed vignette of Sitzenberg castle set within a wooded landscape with a body of water in the foreground, rendered in a woodcut or letterpress style. A decorative scroll banner at the top carries the place name 'Sitzenberg', flanked by shield cartouches each bearing the denomination numeral '20'. The lower portion displays the value inscription '20 Heller Kassenschein' in bold Gothic typeface, with the artist's signature 'E.F. Hopecher' at the lower right. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse, also in dark red on cream paper, is framed by a decorative ribbon-and-bow border. At the top, a crowned shell or fan motif suspended from a floral garland tied with bows surmounts a shield bearing the letter 'S'. The central text block, set in period Gothic script, carries the municipality's redemption guarantee, the place and date of issue, the mayor's facsimile signature, and an anti-counterfeiting warning at the foot. |
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| Comments |
Sitzenberg is a small village in Lower Austria — today part of the merged municipality of Sitzenberg-Reidling — and this 20 Heller note is a product of the Notgeld wave that swept Austrian municipalities between 1919 and 1921. With the old Habsburg currency system in collapse and small coinage effectively vanishing from circulation, thousands of communes printed their own emergency money. Most were redeemable in theory; in practice, many issuers lacked the reserves to back them.
The designer credit to E.F. Hopecher is unusually specific for a village-level issue. Whether printed locally or through one of the Vienna commercial printers servicing rural Notgeld commissions is not definitively established.