20 Heller Mondsee

One of thousands of Austrian municipal emergency notes — Notgeld — issued during the severe coin shortage that followed the First World War. Mondsee, a small lakeside market town in the Salzkammergut, printed its own fractional currency because the state simply could not supply enough low-denomination coinage to keep local commerce moving. These hyper-local issues were a practical necessity first, a collectible commodity second — though by 1920 or so, the speculative collector market had begun distorting production runs.

Designed and presumably printed locally, with Reisenbichler credited as designer and signed by A. Kaltenbrunner, likely a municipal official rather than a bank representative.