1 Peseta Albesa

Albesa is a small municipality in the Noguera comarca of Lleida, Catalonia. This 1 Peseta note was issued by its local council during the Spanish Civil War, when the Republican zone faced a severe shortage of fractional currency — coins had largely disappeared from circulation, hoarded or melted, and the central government's supply of small denominations could not keep pace with local demand. Hundreds of Catalan municipalities responded by printing their own emergency paper, authorized under a 1937 Generalitat decree that formalized what was already happening spontaneously.

The thick card construction was typical of municipally produced emergency issues from this region, where proper banknote paper was simply unavailable.