5 Lire Vittoria

Vittoria was a small agricultural town in the Ragusa province of southeastern Sicily, and its prisoner-of-war camp was one of dozens that Italy operated during the First World War to house Austrian and other Central Powers captives. Camp-issued scrip like this circulated exclusively within the wire — it prevented prisoners from accumulating Italian legal tender, which could facilitate escape or black-market dealings with local civilians.

Printed locally rather than by a specialist security printer, these notes were produced under purely functional conditions. The entire Vittoria series is poorly documented, and surviving examples are genuinely rare — the camps were closed rapidly after the Armistice of November 1918, and scrip was withdrawn and destroyed rather than redeemed.