20 Heller Ulmerfeld

Ulmerfeld is a small market town in Lower Austria, and like hundreds of similar municipalities, it issued its own emergency paper currency during the acute coin shortage that gripped Austria from around 1916 onward. These Notgeld pieces — technically Kriegsnotgeld, or war emergency money — were a direct consequence of metal being diverted to the war effort, leaving ordinary commercial transactions without adequate small change. The 20 Heller denomination would have covered routine daily purchases at the time.

The Jaksch/Pick reference JPR1089I-20 places this firmly in the first wave of Austrian municipal issues rather than the more decorative Kleingeldscheine that appeared after 1920.