250 Lire Banca Sella - Biella

Banca Sella's 250 Lire fiduciary note belongs to the wave of emergency small-denomination scrip that flooded northern Italy in the mid-1970s when coin shortages made everyday transactions genuinely difficult. The Italian state briefly tolerated — then eventually suppressed — these privately issued miniassegni, which were technically cheques rather than banknotes, allowing commercial banks and companies to sidestep laws prohibiting private currency. Banca Sella, a Piedmontese family bank founded in Biella in 1886, was among dozens of institutions that issued them.

The Banca d'Italia moved to prohibit new issues by 1979, and the series was effectively killed off. Many circulated heavily as small change before being redeemed or simply lost.