5 Centimos Vic; Cafes Bars i Similars

One of hundreds of fractional emergency notes issued by local businesses and municipalities across Catalonia during the Civil War, when the Republican government's inability to maintain a functioning small-change supply left commerce effectively paralyzed. The collective issuer — the guild of cafes, bars, and similar establishments in Vic — pooled resources to commission Viladot in Barcelona to print a workable substitute. That a hospitality trade association had to become a de facto monetary authority says something stark about the breakdown of 1936.

Vic produced an unusual volume and variety of Civil War local issues relative to its size, and AL#3077 is among the smaller-denomination pieces in that corpus.