50 Heller St. Georgen an der Gusen

Klemens Brosch was one of the most gifted graphic artists working in Linz in the early twentieth century — and also one of the most tragic. He died by suicide in 1925 at thirty-six, leaving behind a body of work that included commercial graphics, bookplates, and a small number of Notgeld commissions for Upper Austrian municipalities. His involvement in the St. Georgen an der Gusen issue means this note was both designed and printed by the same hand, an uncommon arrangement that gives the piece a coherence rarely seen in the genre.

The Notgeld wave that produced it was driven by a nationwide coin shortage following Austria's defeat in the First World War, with market towns issuing their own fractional scrip to keep local commerce moving.