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50 Gulden
| Issuer | Oesterreichische National Zettel Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1816 |
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| Shape | Rectangular |
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| Obverse description | Plain white note with letterpress text in German script. At upper left, an ornate shield-shaped vignette bearing the numeral "50"; to the right, large Fraktur inscription "Fünfzig Gulden". Two oval underprint stamps at lower left and centre-right; serial number at upper right. Three lines of text state the promise to pay, dated Vienna, 4th July 1816, with two manuscript signatures at lower right for the bank. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Fünfzig Gulden Die Oesterreichische National Zettel Bank bezahlt gegen diese Anweisung dem Ueberbringer Fünfzig Gulden in Silbermünze nach dem Conv. Fuße. Wien den 4ten Julius 1816. Für die Oester. N. Z. Bank. Fünfzig Guld Silber-Münze |
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| Comments |
The Oesterreichische National Zettel Bank was itself a product of emergency — established in 1816 specifically to manage the catastrophic debt left by the Napoleonic wars and the disastrous 1811 Austrian state bankruptcy, which had wiped out roughly 80% of the value of existing banknote issues through forced conversion. This 50 Gulden note belongs to the bank's earliest emission, issued into a public that had just been burned badly by government paper and remained deeply reluctant to trust it again.
Printed in Vienna at a period when Austrian note production was not yet standardized, these early Zettel Bank issues are genuinely scarce in any condition — survival rates were low, partly by design, as redemption and destruction of old paper was central to the bank's stabilization mandate from the start.