20 Halerzy Bielsko

Bielsko issued this note in 1920 as a notgeld, part of the enormous wave of German and Central European municipal emergency coinage that flooded the region during and after the First World War when small-denomination coins effectively disappeared from circulation. At that moment Bielsko was in political limbo — the town had just passed from Austrian to Polish sovereignty following the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, and the currency situation reflected that disorder directly. Municipal paper of this type was a local stopgap, backed by nothing more than the issuing council's word.

The halerz denomination is itself a relic: the Austro-Hungarian heller, retained briefly in early Polish circulation before standardization on the złoty system made such notes obsolete.