50 Heller Ohlstorf

Ohlstorf is a small parish in Upper Austria's Salzkammergut region, and like hundreds of similarly modest communities, it issued Notgeld during the acute coin shortage that followed the collapse of the Habsburg economy. The Salzkammergut-Druckerei in Gmunden handled much of the local emergency currency work across the surrounding districts, which gives these notes a regional coherence — the same press, the same paper stock, notes signed by different village functionaries across a dozen parishes.

The two signatories, Matthias Lehner and Anton Huemer, were almost certainly local municipal officials rather than bankers. Redemption of such issues was guaranteed only by the issuing commune's word, which by 1920 was itself an uncertain backing.