50 Heller Ostermiething

Ostermiething is a small market town in Upper Austria, and this 50 Heller note is a product of the Notgeld wave that swept Austrian municipalities between 1919 and 1921 — a response to the severe coin shortage that followed the collapse of the Habsburg monetary system. Local authorities were authorized to issue their own emergency small-denomination paper, and hundreds of towns did exactly that, often printing runs that were frankly too small to matter economically but served an immediate practical need.

The single signature, Lindlbauer, almost certainly represents the serving Bürgermeister at the time of issue.