150 Lire Banca Sella - Biella

Banca Sella is one of the few private Italian banks that survived the twentieth century without nationalization, and this 150 Lire note belongs to a peculiar category of Italian financial history: the miniassegni, the small-denomination cheques issued by banks and commercial entities during the coin shortage of the mid-1970s. Italy's chronic hoarding of metallic coinage — driven partly by speculation on the metal value of copper and nickel — created a genuine transactional crisis, and the banking system responded with these quasi-banknotes that circulated as change.

The 150 Lire denomination is among the more unusual values in the series, reflecting the ad hoc nature of the shortage rather than any standardized response from the Banca d'Italia.