2 Korona Kecskemét

In the chaotic months following the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Hungarian municipalities issued their own emergency currency — szükségpénz — when centrally issued notes dried up entirely. Kecskemét, a large agricultural market town on the Great Hungarian Plain, was among dozens of cities that took matters into their own hands in 1919, a year already fractured by the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic and the Romanian military occupation that followed it.

Municipal issues like this one were locally printed, often on whatever stock was available, and their legal standing was perpetually ambiguous. Redemption was promised but not always honored.