25 Centimos Monistrol

Monistrol de Montserrat issued these cardboard emergency notes-cum-coins in 1937 as the Republican zone's metallic coinage evaporated — hoarded, melted, or simply absent. Dozens of Catalan municipalities improvised their own fractional currency that year, each piece technically illegal under central Republican monetary authority but tolerated out of necessity. The cardboard construction was not improvisation for its own sake; aluminum, copper, and brass had been redirected toward the war effort.

The Turró and Gari catalogues treat these as cartró (cardboard) issues distinct from the paper emergency notes of the same period. Survival rates are surprisingly low given the volume originally produced — the material degrades easily, and most saw hard daily use before the Nationalist occupation of Catalonia rendered them worthless in 1939.