50 Heller Asten

Asten is a small market town in Upper Austria, and like hundreds of similar municipalities it issued Notgeld during the postwar coin shortage that left everyday transactions nearly impossible. The 50 Heller denomination was the workhorse of local emergency issues — small enough to replace missing copper and bronze coinage, but substantial enough to cover routine purchases. J. E. Kleinert of Ottensheim was a regional job printer, not a specialist security firm, which is why these hyperlocal issues vary considerably in paper quality and impression consistency even within the same print run.

The single signature of K. Huber — almost certainly the Bürgermeister at the time — reflects the informal authority under which these notes were validated.