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| Issuer | Marktgemeinde Leiben (Market Town of Leiben) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1920 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Krone (1918-1921) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Gutschein der Marktgemeinde Leiben im Weitentale. 50 Heller. Giltig bis 31. Dezember 1920. Leiben am 1. Mai 1920. |
| Reverse description | The central vignette presents an intaglio-style rendering of Schloss Leiben, the ruined medieval castle tower set amid rocky terrain with smoke rising from chimneys, enclosed within a decorative rectangular border; the caption 'Schloß Leiben im Weitentale' runs along the lower margin with the designer credit 'Entw. Jos. J. Beyer' at lower right. Two flanking scroll cartouches carry the guarantee and redemption texts: the left bears the municipality's liability pledge signed by the Vizebürgermeister, the right the redemption notice signed by the Bürgermeister. The denomination '50 Heller' is repeated in Gothic script at upper left and upper right corners. |
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| Comments |
Leiben is a small market town on the Danube in Lower Austria, and like hundreds of similar municipalities it issued emergency small change — Notgeld — during the severe coin shortage that followed the First World War. The 50 Heller denomination places this squarely in that wave of local scrip that flooded Austria between 1919 and 1921, most of it redeemable only within the issuing community and worth nothing two villages over.
The printed date of 30 April 1945 almost certainly refers to a later reprinting or a catalog annotation date — that date is the day Soviet forces completed their encirclement of Berlin and Adolf Hitler died, an unlikely moment for an Austrian market town to be issuing 1920-dated Notgeld for the first time. Designer credit to Jos. J. Beyer is consistent with the regional commercial artists who handled much of Lower Austria's municipal Notgeld work.