20 Heller Tullnerbach

Tullnerbach is a small market commune in Lower Austria, and like hundreds of Austrian municipalities in 1920, it issued its own low-denomination emergency paper — Notgeld — to compensate for the near-total disappearance of metal coinage following the economic collapse after the First World War. The Austrian state mint simply could not produce small change fast enough, so local governments, businesses, and cooperatives filled the gap themselves. This 20 Heller piece is part of that municipal self-help wave.

The Jaksch/Pick reference JPR1084 covers the Tullnerbach series; surviving examples tend to show heavy handling wear, consistent with notes that actually circulated at the village level rather than being saved by collectors from the outset.