20 Schilling

The P#142a belongs to the third postwar schilling series, introduced as Austria rebuilt its central banking infrastructure following Allied occupation. The OeNB printed this series in-house — one of the few European central banks of the period operating its own full intaglio production facility rather than contracting to specialist security printers like De La Rue or Giesecke & Devrient.

Roman Hellmann designed several notes in this series. The watermark remains the primary security feature, reflecting the relatively conservative anti-counterfeiting standards of Austrian issues from this decade before metallic threads became widespread.