5 Céntimos Vilassar de Mar

Vilassar de Mar is a small coastal town north of Barcelona, and like hundreds of Catalan municipalities it issued its own emergency paper currency during the early months of the Civil War after the collapse of the Republican banking system made coin nearly impossible to obtain. These hyper-local emissions — often printed on whatever card stock was available — circulated only within the issuing municipality and were theoretically redeemable by the local council.

At this size and weight, the note was essentially a stiff card token. Turró catalogues thousands of these Catalan municipals; this one is among the smaller-denomination pieces from the Maresme coast.