200 Lire Cassa Rurale di Tesero

Cassa Rurale di Tesero is a small rural cooperative bank serving the Fiemme Valley in Trentino, and this 200 Lire note belongs to the wave of locally issued fiduciary notes that proliferated across northern Italy during the coin shortage of the 1970s. The Italian state had largely abandoned low-denomination coinage in practical terms — inflation had eroded their value, and hoarding of metal was rampant. Municipalities, cooperatives, and transit companies stepped into the gap, producing their own small-change substitutes.

These notes had no legal tender status outside their issuing community and were accepted on trust alone. TipoLito 3A in Turin handled production for numerous such issuers across the region.