50 Heller Eschenau

Eschenau is a small rural municipality in the Pielach valley of Lower Austria, and this 50 Heller note is a product of the notgeld crisis that swept Austrian communities in the early 1920s — when chronic coin shortages and postwar monetary chaos forced even minor villages to print their own emergency small change. The Gemeinde issued these on local authority alone, with Bürgermeister Michl Ecketsberger's signature carrying whatever guarantee the municipality could offer.

By 1922, federal currency reform had rendered most Austrian local notgeld obsolete, and redemption was inconsistent at best in communities this size.