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20 Heller St. Pölten, Firma Franz Pittner
| Issuer | Firma Franz Pittner, St. Pölten |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| In circulation to | 30 November 1920 |
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| Obverse description | Pink-tinted notgeld printed in dark green throughout. The upper portion carries elaborate Fraktur script lettering identifying the issuer, with the sub-title 'Hotel-, Realitäten- und Kunststein-Fabriksbesitzer' below. To the left, a detailed architectural vignette within a ruled border shows the Hotel Pittner complex with annotations 'Neubau 1912' and 'Hotel Pittner – Altes Haus (gegründet 1514)'. To the right, the denomination '20 Heller' is set within a dark oval cartouche with ornamental border, beneath which a text block states the redemption conditions and validity date of 30 November 1920, followed by a manuscript signature of Franz Pittner. |
|---|---|
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| Signature(s) | Franz Pittner |
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| Comments |
Franz Pittner was one of dozens of Austrian commercial firms that issued Kleingeldersatz — small-change substitutes — during the severe coin shortage that followed the First World War. The Habsburg monetary system had collapsed, the new Republic of Austria was scrambling to establish itself, and municipal and private issuers stepped into the gap with notgeld in denominations too small for the state to bother printing. Firma Franz Pittner, a St. Pölten business, signed its own paper and put it into local circulation as a purely practical stopgap.
The 1920 date places this note in the later wave of Austrian notgeld, by which point the phenomenon had become almost routine in Lower Austria's commercial towns.