Catalog
25 Céntimos Aínsa
| Issuer | Aínsa, Municipality of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1937 |
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| Printer | Imprenta El Secretariat Català, Barcelona, Spain |
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| Reverse description | Light violet note with dark violet letterpress text. A general view of the town of Aínsa serves as the central pictorial element, rendered as a landscape vignette. The denomination and mandatory local circulation notice are printed in the surrounding text area. |
| Reverse lettering | 25 CTS. BILLETE DE CURSO LOCAL OBLIGATORIO VEINTICINCO CÈNTIMOS (Translation: 25 Centimos Mandatory local course banknote Twenty-five Centimos) |
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| Comments |
Aínsa is a small Aragonese town in the Pyrenean foothills, and like hundreds of Spanish municipalities during the Civil War, it issued its own fractional paper currency when coinage disappeared from circulation almost entirely after 1936. The Republican government's inability to maintain a functioning small-change supply forced this improvisation at a purely local level — these notes were valid only within the issuing municipality and had no standing elsewhere.
The printer, El Secretariat Català in Barcelona, produced emergency selos de cartón and paper fractionals for numerous Aragonese and Catalan municipalities during this period, which accounts for a certain consistency of production quality across what were otherwise hyper-local issues.