5 Pesetas

Issued at the outbreak of the Civil War, this note was produced in Zaragoza — Nationalist-held territory from the very first days of the July 1936 uprising. The Banco de España's Zaragoza branch effectively operated as a semi-autonomous issuing point once the Republican government in Madrid lost control of the northern Aragonese capital, and Portabella, a local commercial lithographer rather than a specialist security printer, was pressed into service precisely because orthodox banknote production facilities were inaccessible or unreliable under wartime conditions.

The use of a commercial lithography house rather than a proper intaglio printer left these notes relatively easy to counterfeit — a known vulnerability that Nationalist monetary authorities acknowledged but could not immediately remedy.