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Saxony was the big loser in the Seven Years' War. In 1763, the country found itself on the brink of disaster, economically and politically. The government finances needed to be re-organised and the economy rebuilt. One of the measures involved the introduction of paper money as new legal tender in 1772. The note you see here was one of the first batch to be issued. Modernising the monetary system was an important step towards consolidating the country's economy.

Austria had led the way – paper money, known as "Bankozettel", had been introduced there as early as 1762. Saxony decided to model its own notes on those issued by Vienna's Stadt-Bank. It issued an edict stating that notes to the value of one, two, five, ten, fifty and one hundred Reichsthalers were to be issued by the state's savings banks and accepted as legal tender at full face value. The sum issued was covered by revenue from excise duty and state consumption tax. In all, 780,000 notes with a total value of 1.5 million thalers were printed.

The population soon adopted the paper money enthusiastically. From 1779, people actually had to pay an extra fee of six pfennigs for using "Churfürstlich Sächsische Cassen-Billetts" – the bank notes issued by the Electorate of Saxony. Since the notes soon wore out and increasing numbers of forgeries came into circulation, new notes with lower face values were issued in 1804.