150 Lire Banca del Friuli

La Banca del Friuli issued this 150 Lire note as an emergency fiduciary substitute during the coin shortages that plagued Italy through much of the 1970s — a period when small-denomination specie had effectively vanished from circulation, hoarded or melted, leaving retailers and banks scrambling for alternatives. Dozens of regional institutions issued their own cartamoneta fiduciaria under a temporary legal framework that permitted private entities to circulate low-denomination paper, provided the issuer guaranteed redemption.

The MICR encoding reflects the quasi-banking infrastructure underpinning the series: these notes were designed to clear through normal banking channels, not simply pass hand to hand. Turati Lombardi, a Milan security printer with deep roots in Italian commercial document production, handled the bulk of this category of issue.