Navata is a small municipality in the Alt Empordà comarca of Girona province, and like hundreds of Catalan towns it issued emergency small-change paper during the Spanish Civil War when metallic coin effectively disappeared from circulation after 1936. These municipal issues — collectively documented in Andreu Turró's reference catalog — were produced locally, typically on whatever card or paper stock was available, and authorized by the town's own governing council rather than any central banking authority.
The stamp security feature was the norm for these issues: a rubber or official seal impression applied at the time of authorization, functioning as the only available authentication method. Survival rate varies wildly across municipalities; for a village the size of Navata, surviving examples are genuinely scarce.
Navata is a small municipality in the Alt Empordà comarca of Girona province, and like hundreds of Catalan towns it issued emergency small-change paper during the Spanish Civil War when metallic coin effectively disappeared from circulation after 1936. These municipal issues — collectively documented in Andreu Turró's reference catalog — were produced locally, typically on whatever card or paper stock was available, and authorized by the town's own governing council rather than any central banking authority.
The stamp security feature was the norm for these issues: a rubber or official seal impression applied at the time of authorization, functioning as the only available authentication method. Survival rate varies wildly across municipalities; for a village the size of Navata, surviving examples are genuinely scarce.