500 Gulden

The Wiener Stadtbanco — formally the Banco Zettel Haupt-Kasse operating under municipal authority — was already under severe strain by the mid-1790s, its note circulation expanded far beyond the specie reserves nominally backing it. This 500 Gulden denomination would have represented a very large sum in daily commercial life, making it a wholesale instrument rather than anything passing through ordinary hands.

The series culminated in the catastrophic Bankozettel inflation of the Napoleonic period, when forced war financing drove the bank to suspend specie payments entirely. The 1811 Finanzpatent then wiped out noteholders at one-fifth face value — a devaluation that made pre-1800 high-denomination survivors particularly bitter relics for Austrian creditors.