0.50 Pesetas Benabarre

Benabarre is a small municipality in the Ribagorza comarca of Huesca, Aragon — deep in territory that fell under anarcho-syndicalist control during the first months of the Spanish Civil War. The CNT-AIT collectivized the local economy almost immediately after July 1936, and emergency fractional notes like this one were issued to replace coinage that had vanished from circulation almost overnight. Silver and copper were hoarded, melted, or requisitioned; card stock stepped in.

The Gari catalogue documents dozens of these Aragonese collectivity issues, most surviving in tiny quantities. Benabarre's series is among the more obscure, issued by a village of only a few hundred inhabitants.