The Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval issued these aluminum bronze pesetas as token wages — a practice the Franco regime permitted for large industrial employers who operated semi-autonomously in isolated shipyard communities. Workers at SECN facilities in Ferrol, Cartagena, and Sestao received a portion of their pay in company scrip, redeemable only at company-run stores. It was truck system economics in postwar Spain, where the autarky policy had left the official currency unreliable enough that private token circulation filled genuine gaps.
By 1948, the Spanish state was slowly reasserting monetary control, and issues like this one were already operating on borrowed time.
The Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval issued these aluminum bronze pesetas as token wages — a practice the Franco regime permitted for large industrial employers who operated semi-autonomously in isolated shipyard communities. Workers at SECN facilities in Ferrol, Cartagena, and Sestao received a portion of their pay in company scrip, redeemable only at company-run stores. It was truck system economics in postwar Spain, where the autarky policy had left the official currency unreliable enough that private token circulation filled genuine gaps.
By 1948, the Spanish state was slowly reasserting monetary control, and issues like this one were already operating on borrowed time.