20 Heller Rattenberg

Rattenberg, on the Inn River in Tyrol, holds the distinction of being Austria's smallest town — a fact that makes its wartime emergency currency all the more striking. These Heller notes were issued as Notgeld during the acute small-change shortage of the First World War, when hoarding of metal coinage left ordinary commerce nearly paralysed across the Habsburg provinces.

Wagner of Innsbruck handled production for numerous Tyrolean municipal issues of this period, which means the printing quality is competent but not exceptional — local job-shop work rather than anything approaching specialist banknote production.