80 Heller Kilb

Kilb is a small market town in Lower Austria, and this 80 Heller note belongs to the vast wave of Austrian Notgeld issued between 1919 and 1922 when the postwar collapse of the Habsburg monetary system left local communities without adequate small change. What makes this piece unusual is its issuer: not the municipal authority or a savings institution, but the parish itself — the Pfarrgemeinde. Church bodies issuing emergency currency were not common even within the Notgeld phenomenon, and it reflects how completely civil infrastructure had broken down.

Druck Radinger in Mariazell was a regional printer serving the pilgrimage town trade, better known for devotional printing than fiduciary instruments.