50 Heller Losenstein

Losenstein is a small market town in Upper Austria, and this 50 Heller note is a product of the Notgeld wave that swept Austrian municipalities after the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy left the new republic with a catastrophic coin shortage. Towns printed their own small-denomination emergency money because the central government simply could not supply enough metal coinage for everyday transactions. Prießel in Steyr was a regional printer that handled multiple such commissions across the area.

Bürgermeister Schörkhuber's signature gives the note its local legal authority — without a recognized municipal officer, these pieces had no standing even as informal currency.