300 Lire Banca Sella - Biella

Banca Sella's emergency small-change notes from the mid-1970s belong to one of the stranger chapters in postwar Italian monetary history. A severe shortage of coins — caused by hoarding, vending machine demand, and mint output failures — pushed hundreds of Italian banks, municipalities, and businesses to issue their own fiduciary tokens and paper substitutes between roughly 1975 and 1979. These circulated locally and were accepted only within the issuing institution's commercial reach.

Banca Sella, still a privately held regional bank headquartered in Biella, issued several denominations. The 300 Lire value is among the less common ones — most issuers gravitated toward rounder figures.