1 Peseta Lorca

Lorca's municipal emergency notes of 1937 belong to the wave of locally issued billetes de necesidad that flooded Republican-held Spain once the Civil War disrupted the normal supply of small-denomination coinage. The Banco de España had largely ceased providing fractional currency to areas behind Republican lines, forcing hundreds of municipalities to print their own. Lorca, a market town in Murcia, was among them.

The extreme dimensions — barely a third the height of a standard peseta note — reflect a deliberate economy of paper stock, not a design choice. These were utility objects, and most were destroyed or lost within months of issue.