50 Heller Marbach

Marbach an der Donau is a small market town in Lower Austria, and this 50 Heller note is a product of the catastrophic liquidity crisis that gripped Austrian municipalities after the First World War. The collapse of the Habsburg monetary system left local governments without sufficient coin, forcing thousands of communities — including tiny ones like Marbach — to print their own Notgeld through whatever printer was nearest. Greugruber in Pöggstall, a few kilometers inland, was a logical choice.

Three signatories authenticated this issue: the Bürgermeister, the Vice-Bürgermeister, and a member of the municipal council. That level of formal sign-off on a fractional emergency note speaks to how seriously even small administrations took the legal exposure of issuing private currency.