50 Heller Herzogenburg

Herzogenburg is a small Lower Austrian market town best known for its Augustinian monastery, but in 1920 it was also one of hundreds of Austrian municipalities forced to print their own emergency currency — Notgeld — to address a catastrophic coin shortage that persisted well after the First World War ended. The central government in Vienna simply could not supply enough small-denomination coinage to keep local commerce functioning, so towns and villages took matters into their own hands.

The Jaksch/Pick reference JPR0367 covers the Herzogenburg issues across multiple denominations. These small-town Austrian Notgeld pieces were typically produced in very limited runs for purely local use and were redeemed and destroyed quickly, which accounts for the relative scarcity of surviving examples despite their mundane origins.