10.000 Kronen

Austria's postwar hyperinflation peaked in 1922, and the 10,000 Kronen denomination — unthinkable a decade earlier — was by 1924 a routine transaction note, barely covering a tram fare. The Oesterreichische Nationalbank had been reconstituted under the League of Nations Geneva Protocols of October 1922, which imposed external financial controls and an international loan to stabilize the collapsing currency. This note was issued under those conditions, during the managed transition that would eventually lead to the Schilling reform of 1925.

Rudolf Junk, a Viennese graphic artist associated with the Wiener Werkstätte milieu, brought a distinctly Jugendstil sensibility to the series — unusual for what were effectively high-denomination inflationary scrip notes on borrowed time.