20 Heller Herzogenburg

A hyperlocal emergency issue from the First World War notgeld period, when Austria-Hungary's small-denomination coinage effectively vanished from circulation due to hoarding and metal requisition. The Bahnhof-Restauration — a railway station restaurant — was an entirely typical issuer for this kind of stopgap scrip, as any business that needed to make change and couldn't get coins had both the incentive and, in many cases, the legal latitude to print their own.

The parenthetical "A. Sottsass, Oberndorf a. E." in the issuer line identifies the proprietor and their home address outside Herzogenburg — an administrative detail that occasionally helps researchers distinguish between multiple issues bearing similar town names. Buchdruckerei Herzogenburg handled the printing locally, which was the norm for these utilitarian pieces.