A few weeks ago I wrote about how both Imperial Germany and Austria Hungary replaced their small change during world war one with coins made of base metals such as iron as the as the metal from the original coins was needed for the war effort.

At the time I only had examples from Germany and the Hungarian half of the AustriaHungary.

Since then I’ve acquired this example of a 2 Heller Austrian coin

Note the complete lack of any inscription other than the value and the date.

Unlike the Hungarian part of the empire, in the German speaking part of the empire there was a recognition that not everyone spoke German, and hence the low value coins simply carried the imperial eagle on one side and the value and date of issue on the reverse.

Higher value coins such as 1krone coins usually carried the value on the reverse and the emperor’s image and titles (in Latin in the German half of the empire, after all no one spoke Latin, and in Hungarian in Hungarian portion of the empire).